According to most societies and cultures, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Even the official nutrition guidelines state that you shouldn’t skip breakfast, and for good reasons.
One reason postulated is that eating breakfast helps one in losing weight. However, for most Americans –or about 25%— skipping breakfast has become regular. Furthermore, the recent trends of skipping breakfast have led to new high-quality studies surrounding the conventional rule of not skipping breakfast. In this article, we will examine whether skipping breakfast is either beneficial or harmful to your body.
How Does Skipping Breakfast Affect Your Body?
Breakfast Eaters Tend to Have Healthier Habits
Studies have highlighted that breakfast eaters cultivate healthier habits. For this reason, they are less likely to be overweight/obese and have a lower chance of developing chronic diseases. You should note that these studies are called “observational studies” and do not study the actual cause of these other conditions or diseases.
Thus, within this context, these studies show that people who eat breakfast are likely to have a healthier system, even though these same studies cannot prove why breakfasts cultivate healthier habits.
Eating Breakfast Does Not Boost Your Metabolism
One myth passed down from one society to another is that breakfast “kick-starts” metabolism in the body. Instead, what happens within the body is what is known as the “thermic effect,” which is defined as the increased burning of calories that occurs after you eat.
Metabolism, however, only considers the total amount of food you eat throughout the day, and whether you eat the food in the morning or otherwise makes no difference.
Skipping Breakfast May Cause Weight Gain
Even though it sounds paradoxical, studies have shown that skipping breakfast causes larger hunger pangs for those who skip breakfast, causing them to eat more during lunch or dinner. Eating breakfast has been shown to reduce one’s overall calorie intake by 400 calories per day.
Skipping Breakfast May Have Some Health Benefits
Finally, skipping breakfast has been seen to help with dietary routines. This is known as “intermittent fasting,” which includes a 16/8 method —a sixteen-hour overnight fast followed by an eight-hour eating window. Intermittent fasting can reduce calorie intake, aid in weight loss, and improve metabolic health.
However, you should note that intermittent fasting does not work for everyone, as the effects of such a dietary routine vary from one individual to the other.
Conclusion
In light of the above, it is clear that breakfast has no special effects on the body. Therefore, it does not matter whether you eat breakfast or not, as long as you eat healthy for the rest of the day.
