New research in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition compared a group of obese individuals that consumed 2920 kilojoules or more by 11am every day to a group that fasted each morning until noon. Turned out that whether or not they ate a morning meal didn’t have much of an impact on the participants’ health. Both groups ended up consuming a similar amount of daily kilojoules and saw no significant difference in levels of appetite-controlling hormones or C-reactive protein (which responds to inflammation and may raise your risk of heart disease).
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Even more striking: Neither skipping nor eating breakfast had any effect on resting metabolism or body weight. In short, your morning eats won’t help or hurt your weight loss. Surprised? Of course you are, considering that breakfast is commonly touted as the most important meal of the day for our energy levels, waistlines and overall health.
“The problem is that these benefits, although logical-sounding, are largely based on observational studies and had never actually been tested,” study co-author James Betts, senior lecturer in nutrition, metabolism and statistics at the University of Bath, told New Scientist magazine. The pro-breakfast messages we hear could just be marketing ploys from the cereal, egg and bacon companies flooding our grocery aisles, he suggests.
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Since we’re constantly hearing new buzz about the impact of breakfast on our days, take the study’s findings with a grain of salt on your avocado toast. Meaning, if you love your morning oats, don’t stop spooning it in (check out these 6 oat recipes that’ll kickstart your day). Likewise, if you prefer to sip water ’til lunch, there’s probably no harm in it. You do you, all day long.
This article was originally published on www.womenshealthmag.com
