Should I worry about skipping breakfast?

Is it OK to start the day on an empty stomach? Or could that leave you not just weak but craving unhealthy food?

Is breakfast the most important meal of the day? It probably depends on what you’re doing for the rest of it. Before the industrial revolution, most people ate leftovers for breakfast – if anything at all. Sigmund Freud’s nephew Edward Bernays devised an ad campaign that popularised the modern staple of eggs and bacon in the 1920s, while John Harvey Kellogg introduced his popular line of cereals to help us avoid carnal sin. But with fewer of us labouring in fields or factories, is it still helpful to start the day with a hefty hit of protein – or even a bowl of cereal? Does it matter if you don’t – and might there actually be health benefits to breaking your fast later in the day?

First, let’s hear from the pro-breakfast lobby. A fair amount of observational studies (as opposed to controlled experiments, say) suggest that breakfast-skippers have a heightened risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and stroke, across a range of populations around the world. There’s also observational data that shows breakfast-skippers tend to choose poorer foods throughout the day – which makes sense, as skipping breakfast seems to keep levels of the hunger hormone ghrelin high, while the satiety hormone leptin stays suppressed.

Continue reading…

About Author