Samantha Orme

3/13/14
Eng. 102
Final Research
The Most Important Meal of The Day
Can you imagine going fourteen hours without eating anything? Well thats what
happens when one skips breakfast. Besides being hungry not eating breakfast can also
cause many unhealthy conditions and poor performance in all activates through out the
day. Eating breakfast also has many benefits. It helps in four different ways they are;
weight management, disease prevention, performance in school and work, and
prevention of stress.
More than two-thirds of the adult population in the United States is overweight
or obese ("Overweight and Obesity in the U.S.") Besides being unpleasant to the eye,
obesity can cause many life threatening health conditions. A couple of these conditions
are type 2 diabetes and heart disease. With obesity being such a large problem in the
United States people are always thinking of crazy fad diets and weird exercises to lose
weight, but there is something very simple that everyone can do that will help them
manage their weight. That simple thing is eating breakfast. In an article written by the
director of nutrition on WebMD, Kathleen Zelman, she says, Many studies, in both
adults and children, have shown that breakfast eaters tend to weigh less than breakfast
skippers. In another article, Huffington Posts Amanda L. Chan says, A 2003 study in
the American Journal of Epidemiology showed that people who skip breakfast are 4.5

times more likely to be obese than those who take a morning meal. (Chan) One of the
reasons that breakfast helps manage weight is that it helps reduce hunger through out
the rest of the day. (Zelman) People who skip breakfast tend to eat more at lunchtime
and dinnertime as apposed to those who eat breakfast in the morning. In another article
it says that breakfast kick starts your metabolism. ("10 reasons breakfast is a must")
When you are sleeping your metabolism goes into a sleep as well. The body responds to
not eating for hours and hours by slowing down the metabolic rate. ("10 reasons
breakfast is a must") When breakfast is eaten it wakes up your metabolism so that more
calories can be burned through out the day, assisting in the weight lose process. An
article written by Deborah Enos, a columnist for LiveScience, says that a study was done
showing that people who ate their largest meal at breakfast lost an average of 17.8
pounds over a three month period as apposed to people who ate the same amount of
calories but more at dinner time who only lost 7.3 pounds over the same time period.
Besides helping prevent obesity, that can then cause diabetes and heart disease,
breakfast can directly help prevent these health issues as well. Skipping breakfast may
increase a woman's diabetes risk, according to a study published this month in the
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. (Enos) Another study says that skipping breakfast
is associated with hypertension, insulin resistance, and elevated blood pressure. (Enos)
In an article written by Alexandra Sifferlin, a writer at TIME magazine, it says that a study
done by Harvard School of Public Health in men between the ages of 45 and 82 reports
that men who skipped breakfast had a 27% higher risk of heart attack or death from

heart disease than men who ate breakfast every day. So by simply eating breakfast the
likelihood of these life-threatening diseases can be reduced.
Another great reason way everyone should eat breakfast besides weight loss is
that it can help you preform better in school and on the job. Everyone wants to be able
to do their best in the classroom or get that promotion at work and eating breakfast can
make it easier to obtaining those goals. Studies have shown that people who eat
breakfast are more alert through out the day and do better on tests. ("Overweight and
Obesity in the U.S.") Eating breakfast can wake you up to tackle the day. Those who
dont eat breakfast tend to be groggier and have less energy. Deborah Enos says in her
article, A 2005 Journal of the American Dietetic Association review of 47 breakfastrelated studies found that eating breakfast is likely to improve cognitive function related
to memory and test grades (Enos) In other words eating breakfast improves your
memory making it easier to do well on tests and assist in tasks that need to be done at
work. Breakfast eaters usually have higher energy to preform better in tasks through out
the day. Another big key on how breakfast helps enhance ones school and work efforts is
that it helps with focus. If someone skips breakfast their focus is mostly likely going to be
on how hungry they are and when they will have a break for lunch. It is hard to do well
on anything when your focus is elsewhere. The last way breakfast helps in school and on
the job is that it makes people more pleasant to be around. Hungry people are usually
grouchy people, so with the help of a good breakfast people can become happier,
making it easier to get along with classmates and co-workers ultimately making the day
more successful.

The fourth very important reason that everyone needs to eat breakfast everyday
is that it helps reduce stress. Everyone knows the feeling of waking up in a rush having
barely enough time to brush your teeth. Nobodys day starts off smoothly this way.
Waking up just five minutes earlier and sitting down to a nice well-balanced breakfast
can start of the day a lot calmer and reduce stress. Many healthy breakfast foods have
nutrients that help aid in the reduction of stress.
A final reason why breakfast is the most important meal of the day is its hard for
the body to catch up through out the day to get those nutrients that it missed at
breakfast time. According to a 2011 study in the journal Nutrition Research and Practice
People who rarely eat breakfast consume more fat and fewer nutrients than regular
breakfast-eaters. (Chan) Some of the healthiest most nutrition packed foods are foods
that are usually only eaten at breakfast time. An example of one of these foods is
oatmeal. Oatmeal has been shown in many studies to be good for cholesterol levels and
adding in memory. (Chan) Breakfast is also known for having foods high in vitamin C
that we could miss out on in other meals. Foods like oranges, grapefruit and orange
juice. Just by eating breakfast we can get more of the nutrients to function at our
highest ability through out the whole day.
There are no excuses for every person to get fueled in the morning with a good
breakfast. Many people think that just ten more minutes of sleep will make them feel
more energized to tackle a hard stressful day, but the reality is that waking up early
enough to get a good breakfast will energize the body more than that extra bit of sleep.
With breakfast we can help prevent poor health conditions and increase our

performance in all activities. It can help with weight control, disease prevention,
performance in school, and stress relief. Everyone should take the time to eat breakfast
in the morning. It can improve the day and your life immensely.

Works Cited
Chan, Amanda. "Health Benefits Of Breakfast: 7 Reasons Not To Skip Your Morning
Meal." HUFFPOST Healthy Living. N.p., 16 Oct 2012. Web. 15 Mar 2014.
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/16/health-benefitsbreakfast_n_1968248.html>.

Enos, Deborah. "4 Reasons Why You Should Never Skip Breakfast." livescience. N.p., 12
Sep 2013. Web. 14 Mar 2014. <http://www.livescience.com/39598-reasonsnever-skip-breakfast.html>.

"Overweight and Obesity in the U.S.." Food Research and Action Center. N.p.. Web. 13
Mar 2014. <http://frac.org/initiatives/hunger-and-obesity/obesity-in-the-us/>.

Sifferlin, Alexandra. "Why You Should Eat Breakfast and the Best Times for the Rest of
the Day Meals." Time:Health & Family. N.p., 23 Jul 2013. Web. 14 Mar 2014.
<http://healthland.time.com/2013/07/23/why-you-should-eat-breakfast-andthe-best-times-for-the-rest-of-the-days-meals/>.

Zelman, Kathleen. "The Many Benefits of Breakfast." WebMD. N.p.. Web. 14 Mar 2014.
<http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/many-benefits-breakfast>.

"10 reasons breakfast is a must." eatright. N.p.. Web. 14 Mar 2014.

<http://www.guardianeatright.co.uk/news/article.cfm?article_id=1178>.