Why You Shouldn’t Skip Breakfast

“Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a Prince and dinner like a pauper.”

This is a well-known phrase, but most people do not follow it or even understand why it is so.

Young girl eating a healthy breakfast. Photo: The Tennessee Tribune

Some people, whether in a bid to “not eat too much so that they can lose weight” or because they just don’t feel like eating too early, or because they do not just have the time to prepare something to eat and sit down to eat before rushing off to work in the morning, miss out on breakfast.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Taking a few minutes to eat something can really make a difference to your day. For those who do not have time to eat, there are lots of breakfast ideas that can be eaten on-the-go or when you get to work.

Think of this, your body gets no food or water to fuel it up while you rest, even though you aren’t active. So when you wake up, the blood sugar your body needs to make your muscles and brain function properly is usually low. So, the first thing to do when you wake up is to “break the fast” and fill your body up.

Breakfast provides many benefits to our health and wellbeing, and here are five major reasons why you should eat breakfast:

1. Breakfast provides your body with energy.
Sometimes you find yourself feeling weak or without energy during the day. It is probably because you missed the most important meal of the day. Breakfast gives your body the chance to get nutrients like iron, calcium, vitamins, protein and fibre, and it is advised that you add these to your breakfast meal to avoid missing it later in the day.

Healthy breakfast. Photo: HuffPost

2. Eating breakfast helps control weight.
It kick-starts your metabolism and helps you burn calories throughout the day. Research shows that those who eat breakfast are thinner and less likely to be overweight compared to breakfast skippers. If you skip breakfast, you are more likely to reach for snacks that are high in sugar and fats later that morning. Research also discovered that the meal also does not make a difference to your weight, whether you eat or do not eat breakfast. If you are dieting, cutting calories by avoiding this meal won’t help. To lose weight and to make sure the weight stays off, eat a healthy breakfast.

3. Eating breakfast has long-term health benefits.
It can reduce obesity, high blood pressure, heart disease and diabetes.

4. Eating breakfast helps children.
Kids need the nutrients and fuel breakfast provides. Those who do not eat in the morning have a harder time focusing in school, and they tend to get more tired, cranky or restless. Those who do not eat breakfast are also more likely to eat junk food during the day and become overweight. If they do not want to eat in the morning, pack a snack for them to eat on the way to school or in class like fruit, nuts or a sandwich.

Family Enjoying Meal At Home. Photo: HuffPost

5. Eating breakfast helps bring families together.
If you live with your family, you can make it a tradition when possible. It also helps children develop good eating habits and maintain them throughout adolescence and their life.

So, breakfast really is the most important meal of the day.

Nutritionists advise that breakfast should be eaten within two hours of waking up and should provide calories of about 20-35% of your guideline daily allowance. For breakfast, you do not need to eat a lot. You can just warm up leftovers from the previous night, eat whole-grain cereal, low-fat milk, fruit, a smoothie or protein bars. Pastries are not a good idea.