Skipping Breakfast Is Associated With Nutrient Gaps

According to a study published in the Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, skipping breakfast can cause nutritional deficits that can last even after you eat later meals.

The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey included roughly 31,000 people from the United States. They offered information on nutritional intake as well as eating schedules.

Skipping Breakfast Is Associated With Nutrient Gaps

About 15% of participants skipped breakfast on a regular basis, and researchers discovered that those who did were less likely to satisfy daily vitamin and mineral recommendations, including folate, calcium, iron, vitamins A, B-complex, C, and D.

According to Christopher Taylor, Ph.D., associate professor of medical dietetics at The Ohio State University, the explanation for the deficiency is likely related to the nutrient richness of everyday breakfast foods.

“You have a predisposition not to eat the things frequently consumed at breakfast if you don’t eat them the rest of the day,” he explains. “As a result, the normal breakfast nutrients turn into a nutritious void.” These foods, according to the researchers, include:

Cereals fortified
Low-fat dairy products such as milk and yogurt
Eggs
Steel-cut oats or oatmeal
Vegetables and fruits

Taylor adds that skipping breakfast for a day or two could have an effect. Researchers were able to examine day-to-day variations thanks to the participants’ eating patterns, and he observes that nutrients were short on days when breakfast was skipped.

Snacking Takes the Place of Breakfast

When compared to individuals who ate breakfast every day, those who skipped breakfast ingested significantly more calories throughout the day, as well as higher levels of added sugars, refined carbs, and saturated fat.

“It seems that skipping breakfast lowers overall diet quality,” Taylor explains. He also claims that without breakfast, participants snacked more throughout the day, particularly on high-calorie foods.

Various studies have found that including breakfast in your daily routine has other advantages. According to a study published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, having a large breakfast burns more calories than eating the same amount in the evening.

The reason, according to the experts, is that a morning meal heats your metabolism during digestion. However, because the evidence in this area is conflicting, it’s not a given that breakfast equals weight loss.

Another study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology indicated that those who never ate breakfast had a higher chance of dying young from cardiovascular disease than those who did.

Breakfast skipping has been linked to a lower overall diet quality

The researchers found that “breakfast gives a unique opportunity to ingest key micronutrients that may be less present in future meals.” People who miss breakfast may just be less aware of or worried about their nutrition, so it’s unclear if they could fix their nutritional deficiencies simply by adding this extra meal.

>> More research is needed to see if skipping breakfast leads to increased appetites for calorie-dense foods with higher sugar and fat content, or if those who eat these items are less eager for breakfast when they wake up.