Research on Breakfast

Posted by Cash On on 2013-07-26 0

How important is breakfast?? Researchers split 400 college-age students into two groups; they fed one group breakfast and the other no breakfast. They then tracked their eating habits throughout the day and measured the amount of calories they were consuming. While the non-breakfast eating group reported feeling hungry by lunchtime, they didn’t consume larger lunches compared to the group who had eaten breakfast. In fact, the breakfast skippers had consumed roughly 400 fewer calories total at the end of the day. “The problem in our culture is that we consume too many calories, and we have to look around at ways to help us consume less,” says David Levitsky, study author and professor of nutritional sciences and of psychology at Cornell. “And we found that if you are trying to lose weight, then skipping breakfast isn’t necessarily the worst thing for you to do.” While the study was able to accurately measure the exact caloric intake among participants, they did not measure the energy level, metabolism or cognitive function of the breakfast eaters versus non-breakfast eaters. “As we sleep all night we are fasting, and so if we regularly do not ‘breakfast’ in the morning, it puts a strain on our bodies that over time can lead to insulin resistance, hypercholesterolemia and blood pressure problems, which can then lead to heart disease,” says Leah Cahill, study author and research fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health.