In today’s fitness scene, there are a lot of different opinions about breakfast. Some sit firmly in the camp that breakfast is the most important meal of the day and skipping it is a mortal sin. Others (mostly intermittent fasting fans) argue there’s no time for brekkie and that eating it does little to improve your health.
So, with so many contradictory viewpoints floating around, how can you tell what’s best? Below we take a deeper look into breakfast and why it may not be as important as many people think.
Why we think breakfast is necessary (and why it’s not)
There’s no shortage of studies that praise the health benefits of breakfast. They suggest that skipping it is bad for your cardiovascular health, children who eat breakfast do better in school, so on and so forth. But a deeper look at most of these studies show that they are mostly observational. This means instead of applying certain conditions to a controlled test group (i.e. an experimental study), they look at data and then try to draw inferences.
The issue is that any process in the body is incredibly multi-faceted and depends on a huge number of variables. Couldn’t it be, for example, that children who ate breakfast came from higher-income families, which means they performed better in school? Correlation does not equal causation.
In the absence of a controlled environment, it’s hard to tell if just one thing is the cause of the reported results, or if the effects are conflated with those of another variable (granted, it is difficult to study the human body any way but observationally).
A relic from older, outdated studies is the pervasive myth that eating several small meals throughout the day will “boost your metabolism”. Over time, this evolved into the belief that breakfast is the central pillar to any healthful diet. Logically, it follows: if you’re asleep for eight hours a night, that’s eight hours gone without stoking the proverbial furnace (unless you sleep eat), so you need breakfast straight away to start it back up. But in reality, there’s no real evidence to support the preceding argument.
Over the short term, variations in meal frequencies can have an effect on Thermic Effect of Food (TEF, or the amount of energy you use in the digestion, absorption and distribution of nutrients). But over the course of 24 hours, there is no difference. The British Journal of Nutrition followed subjects eating either three or six meals a day and found that if total caloric and nutrient intake remain the same, metabolism does as well.
What about meal timing? In a study published recently in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, researchers divided volunteers into groups of breakfast-eaters and breakfast-skippers and then instructed them to either always skip breakfast or always eat breakfast. This way, some continued with their current eating habits and others changed them. Sixteen weeks later, no one had lost any significant weight — around half a kilo or so among them on average. Throughout the group, weight was unaffected by neither skipping nor eating breakfast. A similar 12-week study also found that there was no significant advantage to skipping or eating breakfast for weight loss. Rather, those who lost the most weight were in groups that were instructed to change their habits.
In short: there really isn’t any special significance to breakfast. Other than the fact that pancakes are the best. (Waffle lovers, are you that greedy for syrup as to need extra pockets?)
What skipping breakfast taught me
There are many myths surrounding IF (cycling between fasting and non-fasting), of which skipping breakfast is a form. As it turns out, the ideas that missing breakfast will have a negative impact on cognition and metabolism are based on faulty observational studies. In fact, short-term fasting has no negative effect on cognition and actually increases metabolism due to the release of catecholamines.
But I’ve found the real benefit is in the freedom it allows all dieters. Back to about 2010, when I started experimenting with IF I was surprised. My metabolism didn’t slow down, I didn’t get hungry and overeat later on, and I didn’t lose my gains, wither up and die like most of the internet had led me to believe. (Thanks for nothing, internet.)
Due to the hormone ghrelin, which makes you used to eating at the same time each day, it took me a week to adjust. After that, I found that my mornings are more productive. I had one less thing to worry about in the morning. I could train, read, or hit snooze instead of cracking open eggs or cooking oatmeal because I had to.
This holds true for most of my clients. I’ve encouraged many of my trainees to experiment with IF. Sure, it’s not the universal answer to weight loss. But allows them to find an eating pattern based on their preference, rather than dogma. Most actually continue with the protocol, but some don’t. The importance is the demonstration that your ability to achieve your goals doesn’t come down to the minutiae of your daily routine. It comes down to being consistent.
So should you skip breakfast? Do what works for you. If you like breakfast, eat it. If you can’t stomach it, skip it — nothing bad is going to happen (but do remember to give it a week to adjust). Your decision should be based on personal preference and what you can stick to in the long term.
So what is the most important meal of the day? Any meal that you want it to be.
This story has been updated since its original publication.
Comments
14 responses to “Why Breakfast Is Not the Most Important Meal of the Day”
I hardly eat breakfast and have done so for years, no physical or mental affects as you mentioned.
I’m sure eating breakfast as a child has it’s benefits for growth and strength when your body and mind is weak and fragile.
Like you said though, it’s not for everyone.
Crock of shit!
Have to agree. There are so many variables to peoples dietary needs, depending on how big you are, how active, etc. Oh and I wasn’t week and feeble in mind or body when I was a kid!
In this case, it is actually well studied, taking socio-economic details into account, and every study I have read has very close tracking of behavioural and other indicators to a lack of morning nutrition.
I work in schools with relatively lower income families. We tracked behaviour and performance issues for a full year, and then instigated a ‘Breakfast Club’ where students can get a free breakfast at the school before school starts. The difference was huge, behaviour problems went down by a large margin, and performance in class increased also by a high amount. Not with every child, but with a very high percentage of them.
It may not be as important with fully grown people who are, in many cases, already suffering from overnutrition, but for children, the studies are pretty conclusive that missing breakfast is really not a good idea.
Because they were getting free food?
Would you be willing to cite any studies which address the question of any performance differences between a brekky group and a non-brekky but compensated with an increase in nutrition at some other time group? (Or even a simpler, dual-deprivation study, e.g. a non-brekky group vs a non-lunch group.)
Such studies would be extremely relevant to the article and to the discussion.
Thanks very much 🙂
Actually the studies he mentions only measured weight loss. Not the many other factors that would make a meal the most important of the day. He then sells us IF for the rest of the article. It stinks of someone selling his particular all-cure tonic and selectively choosing studies to back up his claims. I call bunk. Your body comes out of sleep for 7+ hours and fires up for the day. It makes perfect sense it does better when it has fuel to do this.
the irony of arguing against scientific “observations” with… observations
So… are you a dietitian Dick Talens? Or is this a culmination of personal “google research”… you know… kind of like how climate change sceptics back up their claims?
His argument was that brekky is not necessarily the most important meal of the day, and he provided supporting citations from sources which are more qualified than most dieticians.
Maybe his analysis is wrong, but you won’t demonstrate that by pointing out he’s not a dietician.
Let’s pretend you didn’t start with a genetic fallacy, and instead pretend that you disagree with his argument for reasons you’re about to explain.
Please remember to mention any evidence you have that brekky *is* more important than lunch and dinner. 🙂
Being a “Registered Dietitian” hardly means you’re a definitive source. My own anecdotal experience is that IF – where I wait until the late afternoon to eat – works gangbusters and doesn’t feel like “dieting.” Medical Doctors such as David Levitsky and Mark Mattson have also done research that throws doubt on the supposed primacy of breakfast. The point it, find what works for you, and stick with it.
The point is that we’re all individuals, and what works for one does not necessarily work for others – as all fields in medicine are discovering …
As the author says, correlation does not equal [prove] prove causation but interesting the National Weight Control Registry (United States) shows that the vast majority of registered individuals on the registry do eat breakfast. In order to be eligible for this registry, you must have lost over 30lbs (13.6kg) in weight and kept it off for a minimum of 1 year. However, the generalisability of this is also debateable as these individuals were all overweight-> seriously overweight.
Seems like the jury is still out on this – although there is moderate evidence (sorry no reference on hand) indicating that stress hormone levels (e.g. cortisol) are raised when breakfast is not munched – the purported clinical effect is (slightly) detrimental to the cardiovascular system.
I suspect (anecdotal) that for the majority of people, eating breakfast is beneficial. Whether or not that makes it the most important meal of the day is another question entirely.
I’ve been doing IF for a few years now, I’m never going back to eating 3 meals a day. I break my fast at 1pm and my last meal at 7pm.
Feels good man
Now I’m not arguing for either side bit I can’t recall a time I’ve heard the phrase breakfast is the most important meal with our it being on a cereal or breakfast ad.
I personally have never been a breakfast person, I was asleep, my metabolism shut down during the high I have no need to bed hungry. Usually took me a few hours until I was hungry. These days I am a big lunch person.