Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Why? It is like taking an auto trip. If your gas tank is empty, when do you fill it up? Before you start the journey or when you arrive? Obviously, you need to be full of high octane fuel to begin your trip, otherwise you are headed for trouble. Likewise, think of your day as a journey; and think of your breakfast as providing energy to start that journey. You need more food energy at the beginning than at the end of the day.
There is a lot of wisdom in the old saying, eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and supper like a pauper.” In other words, breakfast should be just what the word implies: “breaking the fast” of the previous night. One does not break a fast with more fasting. Many Americans have it backwards—they skip breakfast, eat an inadequate lunch, and pack the majority of the day’s fuel supply into the evening meal. However, this custom does not make good nutritional sense.
Check and balances exist to keep the level of our bodies’major fuel supply, blood glucose, within safe limits. After a meal, any blood sugar that is not immediately needed is stashed away in muscles and the liver in a storage form called glycogen. Liver glycogen serves to replenish blood sugar when needed. During the night, liver glycogen kicks in and maintains a steady state of blood sugar for body needs. But what happens when breakfast is skipped? Problems can result, especially for the brain. Without a proper supply of glucose, the brain doesn’t function well. No wonder studies have shown that both children and adults do not perform at their best without breakfast.
In spite of how important breakfast is, breakfast-skipping is all too common. It is estimated that about 3 million American school-age children skip breakfast and have no school-breakfast program available to them. About one in six teenagers goes to school without breakfast. In a Michigan study, over 20 percent of freshman college students skipped breakfast.
Breakfast skipping is even more critical for children than for adults. A greater drop in blood glucose can occur in children because their brain weight to liver-weight is proportionately greater. This means that the liver will have proportionately less glycogen stores and thus be unable to maintain fating blood levels for as long as adults can. In addition, since a child’s metabolism is greater, the brain’s demand for glucose will be proportionately greater than will an adult’s. Obviously, the result could be a diminished brain function in children who skip breakfast, the bottom line: breakfast is important for providing brain fuel throughout the morning.
Another reason that breakfast-skipping combined with eating heavy evening meals is unwise involves the area of energy balance. To be in energy balance means that the energy you take in as food and beverages is equal to the energy you expend. When energy intake consistently exceeds energy expenditure, even by a small amount, the eventual result is extra pounds. Keep in mind that typical evening activities are not real energy-burners: watching TV, reading, relaxing, talking with family and friends. It certainly does not make sound nutritional sense to eat the largest meal late in the day when energy demands are reduced and the extra calories are easily converted into fat.
Breakfast should contain about one-third to one-half of the daily dietary needs. Omitting breakfast can lead to vitamin and mineral deficiencies. For example, a large percentage of preschoolers who skip breakfast fail to reach 70 percent of the Recommended Daily Allowances for many vitamins and minerals. Other studies demonstrate that skipping breakfast results in substantial deficits in various essential nutrients among low-income children, and from older children and teenagers that are not from low-income families. It appears that essential nutrients may not be adequately available if breakfast is not eaten on a regular basis.
The Iowa Breakfast Studies are frequently quoted to illustrate that hunger and under-nutrition have adverse affects on children’s learning ability. They demonstrated that children consuming both breakfast and lunch at school are less likely to suffer from fatigue, irritability and an inability to concentrate. If breakfast was eaten, work rate and output were improved as were the tasks performed later in the morning.
Later investigations, performed on 3 groups of Jamaican children, ascertained the effect of breakfast on various mental performance tests. When breakfast was skipped, the nutritionally deprived groups cored lower on fluency, creativity and motivation, and scored lower in arithmetic and in visual short-term memory tests. When compared with normal children, the undernourished children had poorer scores in arithmetic. It appears that mental performance is more likely to be adversely affected in poorly nourished children who skipped breakfast.
What about well-nourished children? Carefully controlled studies of well-nourished, middle-class children demonstrated that skipping breakfast has an adverse effect on a child’s late-morning problem-solving performance. A significantly greater number of errors were made when breakfast was skipped. Performance on an attention task and arithmetic of normal children with and without breakfast was measured at three different times throughout the morning. Generally, children made more errors as the morning progressed, but at each time point, children having breakfast made fewer errors and were less variable in their performance. Regarding the arithmetic task, eating breakfast made no difference in the early morning, but by mid-morning, those who ate breakfast exhibited a clear improvement over the skippers. Apparently, brain function can be affected by subtle changes in nutritional status.
Obesity continues to be a major problem in the United States. While Americans are obsessed with eating fat-free foods, they continue to get fatter. Interestingly, studies show that skipping breakfast is seen twice as commonly amongst obese children and adolescents than in those not obese. Why is skipping breakfast associated with obesity? Certainly, it increases the likelihood of snacking. Snack, as we well know, are rarely carrot sticks or an apple, but are more often sugar-laden, high-fat convenience foods as chips, doughnuts, sweet rolls, candy, cookies and other junk food.
What about the breakfast habits and health of adults? Two studies from California and Michigan found that men and women who regularly ate breakfast reported better-than-average health compared with those who skipped breakfast. Furthermore, adults who ate breakfast had reduced levels of blood cholesterol, while breakfast skippers had elevate4d cholesterol levels.
As mentioned earlier, breakfast should be king-size and hearty, providing from one-third to one-half of the day’s calories and protein needs. Breakfast should typically be rich in carbohydrates, since glucose is the premium fuel for the brain and the body. This means that one should eat liberally of whole grain, beans, fruits, and vegetables. For example, one may choose to eat either steamed vegetables and brown rice, or whole grain waffles and fruit for breakfast. The sugars found in fresh and dried fruits are wrapped in various dietary fibers, and contain an abundance of vitamins and minerals.
It is important that the starchy foods be whole grain, such as brown rice, whole wheat breads, waffles, bagels, muffins and pasta. The unrefined grains are a wonderful source of vitamins and minerals, protein and fibers. Dietary fiber plays an important role in helping to lower blood cholesterol levels, promote regularity, and help protect against colon cancer.
For good health it is important to choose foods for breakfast that are rich in vitamins and minerals and low in fat, saturated fat and cholesterol, yet high in satisfaction. Egg, bacon, sausage, and omelettes and loaded with artery clogging saturated fat and cholesterol. Pancakes, waffles and French toast that are made with milk and eggs and then freely served with butter or cream are likewise unhealthy for the heart.
Another category of breakfasts that are not the most healthful are those loaded with sugar. Sweet rolls and pastries, doughnuts, pies, sweet cakes, and sugar-loaded cereals all pamper the sweet tooth. Besides being sugar-laden, such items are usually made with white flour and generous amounts of fat. Both the sugar and the white flour have been robbed of many minerals and vitamins during the refining process. A large ingestion of sugar at one time can produce a sharp rise in blood sugar levels. This, in turn, is flowed by a sharp decline in blood glucose due to an insulin surge. The hypoglycemic reaction causes feelings of hunger. A situation that provides no staying power but rather a “roller coaster” blood sugar swing.
Eating a good breakfast is supportive of good health. Skipping breakfast is associated with mid-morning fatigue, sluggish mental achievement, and a greater risk of accidents. The benefits of regularly eating breakfast are best appreciated by experience. A good breakfast is an essential part of our daily routine—the best meal of the day.
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