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.

Comments

Proof of opposing hypothesis?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Breakfast has no mystical powers.

[fustakrakich]

Yes it does. It led Kellogg and General Mills to a bottomless pot of gold.

Finally!

[50000BTU_barbecue]

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?

Re:Finally!

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

You think our ancestors woke up to a fully stocked refrigerator every morning?

Of course not! Don't be an idiot, refrigerators are a relatively new invention.

Our ancestors woke up to a fully stocked wooden box every morning.

Re:Finally!

[hey!]

I've experimented with intermittent fasting. One of the benefits (besides weight loss) is that you feel sharper, more perceptive when you're a bit hungry. It's mind-altering, like taking a nootropic drug that actually works. Once you've tried it it makes extreme calorie restriction seem a bit more attractive.

The medical advice we've had I think overstates the evidence by equating any hunger with starvation, which are two different things. Starvation is your body cannibalizing itself to avoid death. Intermittent hunger is a normal and benign state; it's nature's signal to get off your ass and find something to eat.

The problem, as I like to say, is that evolution has gifted each one of us with an awesome mammoth killing machine, which we use sitting at a desk all day a few steps away from a refrigerator stockpiled with calorie-dense foods. And since we're not accustomed to normal hunger, we jump up and shove our face full of thousands of calories (surprisingly easy to do) because we think we're starving. So the grain of truth in the "never go hungry" philosophy is that if you aren't prepared for an occasional hunger pang, if you aren't going to be able to behave reasonably in the presence of unnatural quantities of unnatural foods, then you'd better avoid ever feeling hungry.

Hunger is stress -- like exercise. When you first start a strength training regime, you probably can't imagine you're doing this to your body. But you adapt, and you can take levels of stress that would have been impossible to tolerate at the beginning like they're nothing.

No food magic at all

[Kohath]

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.

Re:No food magic at all

[baboon]

(I am not a doctor or nutritionist, but I read what I can and watch the whole spectrum of Netflix documentaries, from the obvious to the eccentric.)

That's not a bad list, but...

- Sodium isn't bad for you (unless you have a special condition).

Sodium levels in the body can be fairly independent of ingested sodium. Some people can retain high sodium (and have high BP) even if their salt intake is very minimal. A prescription can bring that sodium down to safe values. But yes, for a lot of people, sodium intakes seems to be of only minimal consequence.

- High fructose corn syrup isn't significantly different than regular sugar.

I thought there was that issue where HFCS doesn't trigger the fullness response in the same way as plain sugar, provoking people to consume more. Has that been debunked now? But nutritionally, I generally treat all the "added sugars" as the same. Try eliminating all added sugar for a year and then eat an apple. They taste awesome.

- Aspertame has no significant health effects.

I don't eat anything that tastes awful, so I haven't even looked into it. And also, I don't trust anything "unnatural" (using my definition).

- Fat isn't bad for you.

In reasonable amounts. Also, I'm still buying into the whole olive oil versus crap oil thing.

- Caffeine doesn't cause heart problems

For some people, it can cause heart palpitations. That seems like a problem to me.

- Health food isn't much better for you than regular food

If "regular food" is what most people eat, then I think there is a big difference. But if you mean brown eggs versus white eggs, than probably not. The brown shells are better, though, because they're a little easier to spot in the frying pan.

- Eggs don't give you a heart attack

The only thing that I got from that big China study was that eggs looked pretty good and
that eating only 1-10 servings of vegetables PER YEAR (in two provinces) was really bad. Those same two provinces were also the only places where anyone drank a considerable amount of milk and that was used for some very sketchy claims against dairy.

Doctors tell me that ingested cholesterol only accounts for like 5% of your blood levels, so if you're doing a Cool Hand Luke on a regular basis, your probably pushing your luck.

- Organic doesn't mean healthy. Neither does natural.

If "organic" means no-pesticides, then I'm all for it, where I can afford it. "Natural" on the package doesn't mean anything useful and it probably will always be a junk marketing term. I use "natural" to mean anything that you could find while wandering around on the planet. Of course, then, arsenic is natural, so that isn't a good enough criteria by itself.

I try to stick to buying food with one ingredient. It's not a perfect rule (I like vinegar in my pickles), but I think the intent is solid and it is a good mantra in the grocery store.

- Chemicals are not bad for you.

See arsenic.

Re:Don't agree

[GLMDesigns]

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)

Re:I have better things to do in the morning

[Hylandr]

4chan containment failure detected.