The Importance of Eating Breakfast

by Karen Massey, INTEGRIS dietitian 

My name is Karen Massey. I'm a registered, licensed dietitian with INTEGRIS health. I'm here with I On Your Health today to talk about breakfast. Should you eat it? The short answer, yes. There's a multitude of studies about eating breakfast, dating back to 1949. The Iowa school system studied the effects of eating breakfast on cognitive skills, and found, in fact, that the children who ate breakfast performed better in math, and reading, and other skills in school. Since 1949, the results have been pretty steadfast in that eating breakfast is important to think.

After that though, we've also been looking at the importance of breakfast as it would relate to weight control. And one of the biggest collections of evidence we have in weight control is the weight control registry. There is a registry with more than 10,000 people who have lost significant amounts of weight, and more importantly, kept it off for very long periods of time. And when we look at that registry, we know that 78% of them consistently eat breakfast. Now admittedly, there are 22% who don't, but 78% percent gets your attention. When you look at a behavior that makes such a difference in people who are able to lose weight and keep it off for very long periods of time. So I think that you can build a really good case for eating breakfast.

Now, bear in mind that, if your idea of eating breakfast is a Grand Slam at Denny's, or a 500 calorie cappuccino, that might undermine your weight loss goals. But if you make wise selections-- whole grains, fruit, some dairy-- breakfast is a wise choice that will help you think, and may help with your weight control.