“When you wake up in the morning, Pooh,” said Piglet at last, “what’s the first thing you say to yourself?”
“What’s for breakfast?” said Pooh. “What do you say, Piglet?”
“I say, I wonder what’s going to happen exciting today?” said Piglet.
Pooh nodded thoughtfully. “It’s the same thing,” he said.”
Mom always told me to eat my breakfast, “It’s the most important meal of the day.” Dutifully, I’d grab the milk and pour it over my favorite cereal – Quisp, or plop a Pop Tart or frozen waffle into the toaster, and eat it on the run.
Through the years, mothers have been telling their children the same thing, following the advice of doctors who tell us that breakfast fuels the body for the day, helping increase concentration and performance. They also seem to point to numerous studies that reveal how children (and adults) who eat a healthy breakfast tend to weigh less than those who skip breakfast.
There is no denying that a healthy meal does the body and the mind good, but when it comes to weight gain, there is some unresolved data. A recent article in The New York Times, “Is Breakfast Overrated?” takes a closer look at the volume of research that connects eating a healthy breakfast with weight gain. As noted in the article:
“Together, the new research suggests that in terms of weight loss, ‘breakfast may be just another meal,’ said Emily Dhurandhar, the assistant professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham who led the study there. Skipping breakfast in these studies, she said, did not fatten people.” (You can read further commentary on the “breakfast/weight-gain” aspect in The Atlantic article Breakfast Downgraded from the ‘Most Important Meal of the Day’ to ‘Meal.’
Weight gain or not, I am of the belief that breakfast is important. Not only for it’s benefits on the body, but the benefits on the mind – and the family.
