Breakfast is bittersweet. It generally means you’re getting out of bed and starting your day (which is a drag), but it also means you have the chance to put bacon in your mouth, which as we all know is amazing. And for a long time we’ve been made to believe that breakfast is THE most important meal of the day.
According to the spunky young fork in the very informative video above, breakfast is something we need. “It fuels you up, fuels you up, fuels you up, fuels you up!” Not only that, but if we’re to believe early 2000s Nickelodeon, breakfast feeds your body and your mind, it makes your muscles big and strong and keeps you going all day long. But is that all really true? Is breakfast the hero of meals or have we been fed lies this whole time?
Turns out, it’s all very subjective. BuzzFeed recently spoke with Dr. Holly Lofton, director of the Medical Weight Management Program at NYU Langone Medical Center and Brian St. Pierre, a dietician and director of nutrition at Precision Nutrition to get to the bottom of things.
They found that evidence supporting that breakfast is a necessity were questionable, with studies exhibiting methodological flaws, biases, and, occasionally, conflicts of interest — such as one breakfast positive study being sponsored by Kellogg’s. They also found our belief that skipping breakfast causes weight gain to be irrationally strong compared to any evidence.
Ultimately, BuzzFeed and the experts they consulted concluded that breakfast is beneficial depending on your lifestyle. People who wake up feeling hungry in the morning should eat because their body is telling them to. Additionally, eating a healthy breakfast could stave off hunger and lead to healthier lunch choices for people interested in losing weight. Of course, those who are malnourished should absolutely eat breakfast, but St. Pierre told BuzzFeed that the first meal of the day isn’t “in and of itself a magical elixir.”
But there are benefits to eating your first meal soon after you wake up, too. Feeding your body earlier may prevent late night snacking, as long as you’re doing it right. Carb-loading early will cause you to crash whereas a balanced breakfast of protein, fats, carbs and veggies is the way to go.
(Via BuzzFeed)
