breakfast: the day’s foundational meal

Make Breakfast A Healthy Habit

By Tony Romano 

Remember the saying “Have breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper”?

Funny thing is, there’s a lot of wisdom in those words. Recently, nutrition experts and leading minds in the medical field are discovering more about why that is. Starting off your day by breaking the fast your body has endured since dinner the previous night is a fundamentally good idea. Day after day, it’s like building a foundation on which to place the rest of your “structure.”

Most adults will readily acknowledge that eating breakfast is a healthy habit. Yet surprisingly, some 20 percent of all adults don’t eat at all in the morning. Lack of time is perhaps the most common excuse given for not having breakfast. Another rationale is that skipping a meal reduces one’s caloric intake. Let’s look at both of these challenges.

Time?

If time is a concern, there are many fast and convenient foods available for breakfast. Items such as cereal/breakfast bars, yogurt and dried fruits can be purchased in bulk and taken with you first thing in the morning. Fruit juices – orange, apple, grape or the like – even come in 12- to 20-ounce mini-bottles for convenient consumption. Fruits like apples, oranges and especially bananas come in the most consumer-friendly packaging of all — nature’s!

Even with a modicum of spare time, a slice of toast or a bowl of cereal can be prepared quickly and eaten easily with a glass of milk or juice. Any of these can stimulate the body’s metabolism and give you the energy necessary to sustain you through the morning. It could be the most important five minutes of the day.

Diet?

A more complex reason given for skipping breakfast is the “dietetic” notion that missing a meal will mean lower caloric intake, and thus help someone lose weight. Actually, skipping breakfast could actually lead to the opposite result.

Metabolism is the process by which your body converts food into energy. As mentioned above, a break in the body’s overnight fast will stimulate metabolism, causing calories to be burned. By not breaking the body’s fast (i.e. skipping breakfast) a person will actually allow his or her metabolism to remain lower, with fewer calories being burned during the day.

According to Deborah Angell, an Ohio State University Extension educator in Huron County, “The body uses glucose or blood sugar for energy. Excess glucose is stored by the liver as glycogen, which can be released as it is needed. By mid-morning, glycogen stores are virtually depleted if breakfast is skipped. As a result, the body has very little quick energy available.” Hunger soon ensues, and this can trigger the vicious cycle of overeating at other times throughout the day.

Oh, and…focus

The ability to concentrate whether in school or at work is greatly compromised when one is hungry and therefore focused on hunger. Angell continued, “Lack of breakfast or an inadequate breakfast may result in a nutritionally inadequate diet, which can influence learning in a number of ways. The hunger resulting from skipping breakfast may cause children to exhibit nervousness, irritability, disinterest in learning, listlessness and lack of concentration. Students may be fatigued, bored or apathetic.”

In adults the results aren’t pretty either, if a habit of inadequate nutrition manifests itself at the workplace. Breakfast can help you be more productive.

So, what’s on the menu?

An ideal breakfast consists of a balance between protein and carbohydrates. For this reason, a bowl of cereal (carbs) with milk (protein) has been the breakfast staple for generations of Americans. The best cereals are the bran-based ones that are rich in fiber—not packed with sugar. Other great sources of fiber are fruits that include the skin (apples, pears, peaches, etc.) as well as whole wheat breads (think toast, muffins or bagels) and even potatoes (hash browns).

With all the mouth-watering options out there, and all the benefits they bring with a tiny investment of time, what’s to stop you from starting off tomorrow with a good hearty breakfast? 

Tony Romano is communications coordinator for Nationwide Health Plans.

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