Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, There's Nothing Magical About Breakfast (nytimes.com)
Is breakfast the most important meal of the day? Plenty of people certainly believe that, but according to a new report, that notion is based on "misinterpreted research and biased studies." The New York Times has run a piece authored by Aaron E. Carroll, a professor of pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine, who looked into numerous studies -- and found flaws in them -- to conclude that breakfast isn't as important after all. (Could be paywalled; alternate source) He writes: The [reports] improperly used causal language to describe their results. They misleadingly cited others' results. And they also improperly used causal language in citing others' results. People believe, and want you to believe, that skipping breakfast is bad. Carroll also points out a conflict in many of such studies: most of them have been funded by the food industry. He concludes: The bottom line is that the evidence for the importance of breakfast is something of a mess. If you're hungry, eat it. But don't feel bad if you'd rather skip it, and don't listen to those who lecture you. Breakfast has no mystical powers.
I wonder if the debunkers have provided evidence that supports their position that breakfast is unimportant and can be skipped? Just because the "proof" for a hypothesis is debunked, does not automatically mean the opposite of the hypothesis is true.
I typically don't have breakfast until 2.5 hours after I wake at 4:30AM and ride the express bus for 25 miles to work, getting my large skinny vanilla latte and breakfast sandwich at the cafeteria. Better to have breakfast after I'm done traveling in the morning. No risk of getting motion sickness and hurling on someone.
Yes it does. It led Kellogg and General Mills to a bottomless pot of gold.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Big Breakfast has been trying to get people to eat a big breakfast for years!
I've been working out on an empty stomach in the mornings for years, only to be criticized by armchair specialists about how bad or impossible this is... There's plenty of reserve energy floating around the human body and there's nothing miraculous about physical activity on an empty stomach.
You think our ancestors woke up to a fully stocked refrigerator every morning?
Mostly random stuff.
I personally never eat breakfast -- during the work week.
I'll eat a minimal lunch (always left overs = free mortgage payment per year :). Oh, wait, I don't have a mortgage anymore because I did that...
On the rare weekend days that I do eat breakfast I'll skip lunch altogether. I'm not hungry.
Dinner, for me, IS the most important meal -- and in many cases the ONLY meal I'll eat for the day.
No, I don't snack either. The funny thing is per US BMI fatso rules I am considered over-weight too boot. Of course they have always said that about me since grade school. I've always ignored it all. Even my doctor looked me up and down and said, "No -- you're just fine. Keep doing what you're doing."
Any magic things you hear about food are usually false:
- Sodium isn't bad for you (unless you have a special condition).
- High fructose corn syrup isn't significantly different than regular sugar.
- Aspertame has no significant health effects.
- Fat isn't bad for you.
- You don't have old undigested meat in your gut.
- You don't need 8 glasses of water per day.
- [Food item XYZ] isn't "brain food"
- Caffeine doesn't cause heart problems
- You don't need X servings of Y food per day
- Health food isn't much better for you than regular food
- Eggs don't give you a heart attack
- Organic doesn't mean healthy. Neither does natural.
- Chemicals are not bad for you.
If you are going to work your balls off, you'd better eat breakfast. If you are going to sit on ass all day, you can probably skip it, unless you're hungry. You can now skip this article, and every other article like it. Tada!
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I find it ironic that in an article about how imprecise and loose language led to the notion that breakfast is somehow special compared to other meals, the summary uses the term magical and the article uses the term mystical.
My own observation is that obese people tend to skip or have a very light breakfast. They then make up for it by having a big lunch, dinner and then snacks right up until bedtime. I've always felt that you should be a little hungry when you go to bed, then have a good size breakfast in the morning. Improves sleep, and sets you up for the day, with only a light lunch and dinner required. I also find that it prevents you from feeling tired in the afternoon.
My observation is that obese people eat snacks. Blaming it on breakfast or no breakfast is a diversion.
There's nothing magical. It's not when you eat. It's calories in versus calories out.
.
Want to lose weight?
Find out your BSR (what you need just to survive)
Count calories.
Try to eat well (within the range of calories)
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Yes, I ask the question about sleep mainly because I know of exactly zero humans who have ever managed to achieve that whole 8-hours-of-sleep shit on any regular basis, and yet we seem to survive and thrive.
I think the whole point of driving the importance of breakfast has less to do with forcing people to eat at a certain hour, and has more to do with the fact that your body hasn't consumed any fuel at that point in roughly 10 - 12 hours, and things start to go downhill for most humans with regards to energy levels and overall alertness after a certain point of no food or drink. This tolerance to avoiding varies from individual to individual, thus no "studies" are necessary, only personal experience.
Bacon is served at breakfast more so than other meals. Magic.
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
Some do, others eat healthy foods, but their bodies have betrayed them. For some of us it's easy to stay fit, so we can easily make the mistake of thinking obese people are gluttons. Some are, and alcohol abuse often plays a role in this, but others exercise and eat healthy food, but can't lose weight. There are even obese vegetarians.
But there is! Feed a lot of it to your grandpa who has arteriosclerosis and an unexpected windfall will be coming your way!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
My wife, who had a long career in medicine, often says about changing ideas on what's good and bad for you, "That's what they say today."
Losing weight and keeping the weight off is simple. Ignore everything but calorie in and calorie out.
At 5'10" and 200 pounds your BSR is in the 1900 calorie / day range. (Look it up).
Figure out how much you exercise (walk, stairs, gym, bike, etc..) and work with that.
Keep you calories under that amount and you will lose weight. Above you gain.
Eating one meal or 10; after 8PM or not; it's the calories that count.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Ultimately for weight loss it really is in the long run. Now eating healthy is best.
But if you eat under your required daily maintenance level you will lose weight. Even if your diet is twinkies and rum.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Many of the above postings are indirectly saying that metabolism is individual, and while some "collective" rules may make sense (get some exercise, don't overeat), not everything generalizes. I suspect breakfast is one of those non-generalizable things.
We all have to find out what works best for us. I find that a small breakfast prevents me from being overly hungry at lunch and then eating more than I should. A large breakfast might have me skipping lunch and being overly hungry at dinner. I'm in the multiple small meals category, but I don't pretend this applies to everyone.
I am obese by all measurements. I weigh about 250lbs but I am not super fat. I do not eat breakfast, I don't snack while I am at work and I eat 2 very sensible meals a day. There are people I know that are much skinnier than I am, that eat 2-3x as much as I do. I also exercise a fair amount by necessity since I don't own a car and use my bicycle for everything. I can sprint for a few city blocks without too much trouble and I am never winded after climbing stairs 6 flights of stairs (which I do several times a day).
So, yeah, I suppose I fall into the "obese-non-breakfast-eating" crowd but I don't think that cramming more food into my body first thing in the morning (when I am not hungry) is going to help slim me down.
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
Some do, others eat healthy foods, but their bodies have betrayed them.
The New York Times had an article on a scientific study of the 2009 Biggest Loser contestants who regain their weight because their metabolism slowed down while dieting (expected) but their metabolism never recovered (unexpected). If they ate the normal calories for their height and weight, they would be eating an extra 400 to 800 calories that their body wants to regain the lost weight.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/health/biggest-loser-weight-loss.html
4chan containment failure detected.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
Feed a lot of it to your grandpa who has arteriosclerosis and an unexpected windfall will be coming your way!
That's also been debunked. Meat and fat don't cause problems; a high carb diet is far worse. So to carry out your plan, feed him pancakes with plenty of syrup.
Anyone else here old enough to remember the Four basic food groups, one of which was entirely taken up by Dairy, which a lot of humans flat out can't digest properly at all? After a while (and a lot of embarrassing gastrointestinal distress), they decided that was BS and created the Food Pyramid. The basic idea of that one was that you should be eating a metric shitload of breads. Today we call those "carbs", and these same types of people will tell you to avoid them like the plague.
Point being that nutrition "experts" have a long proud history of being completely full of shit. They'll even admit it. But that was before. They're right this time.
Breakfast thing being case in point. Young people should probably be fed if they are hungry, but if they aren't its usually downright stupid to force food on them. For older people this goes triple. I found with advancing age that my metabolism has slowed down to the point where if I try to force even 2 meals a day on myself, I gain weight. That's bad. Much, much worse than just eating only the 1 or 2 times a day I'm actually hungry.
Well I haven't eaten what is normally known as "breakfast" for about 7 years. (Of course, as it is technically defined as when you "break your fast", your first meal of the day is breakfast even if eaten at 10 pm). For what it's worth, I have noticed absolutely no ill effects of any kind.
Instead, following the recommendation of a growing number of nutritionists and doctors, I eat two meals a day at approximately noon and 6 pm. That's ample for someone of my age (late 60s) and conveniently allows for an 18-hour semi-fast between dinner and the following day's lunch. (I don't count coffee with lashings of double cream, although strictly it has quite a few calories).
The idea that you have to eat every few hours or you run out of blood sugar and faint has certainly been debunked. And anyway, it makes no sense. After a decent meal, it takes the food over an hour even to be liquidized in your stomach - before it can move on to digestion proper - and then your guts take 12-24 hours to extract most of the nutrients. So it's fairly obvious that you are getting nutrients drip-fed into your blood all that time. And indeed, it's very easy and painless to fast for 24-72 hours, because by the time the food in your intestines has been thoroughly absorbed, your body has automatically and transparently shifted to burning body fat. When I fast, I sometimes feel mild hunger pangs a couple of times the first day, but from the second morning a different (and very enjoyable) state sets in: no hunger, no indigestion, no feeling of fulness at all. It's almost as if you were without a digestive system for the time being, which gives it and you a rest. Incidentally, this is an ideal state to be in if you want to get a lot of work done without interruptions. If you can get into flow, you can work steadily for hour after hour without getting any hassle from your body.
What most of us mistake for hunger is a conditioned reflex, which we have set up to hit us at "mealtimes". Real hunger manifests as tiredness, and may be hard to recognize at first if you are not used to it.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
There are almost equal numbers (of studies and people) on each side. Anyone who claims one or the other is in a religion, not thinking rationally. The only logical conclusion is "it's complicated".
Learn to love Alaska
Ignore everything but calorie in and calorie out.
At 5'10" and 200 pounds your BSR is in the 1900 calorie / day range. (Look it up).
Figure out how much you exercise (walk, stairs, gym, bike, etc..) and work with that.
But none of that works. Calorie out is a guess that's immeasurable. Calories in is also not measurable (unless you make 10 of every meal, and measure the calories in 9, eat 1, and measure the calories in your poop). So the theory is correct, but the measures are useless.
Learn to love Alaska
My grandfather told me to watch out for those so called, "free cholesterol test". He said, "That test cost me my bacon!"
Side note, he lived to be 91 years old. ~ 30 years after the test.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
The only solution is to say "sod it" and eat a bit of everything. Or say "sod it completely" and eat a lot of everything.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Now that's what I call breakfast!
"I only eat discarded tennis shoes. High fiber and good for the environment."
And because they taste better than kale.
The low fat part being debunked is also BS, or at least highly misinterpreted data. People read what they want to read from scientific studies.
http://www.bbc.com/news/health...
Ah yes, congress, the wise men and women of the scientific world.