Breakfast is assumed as the most valuable meal of the day. It turns on metabolism, burns calories, and gives energy that a body requires to get things done, and helps to focus on daily work. Some researchers have linked eating breakfast to good health, and lower the chances of being overweight. For centuries, breakfast is evaluated as the most significant meal of the day in distinct parts of the world.

These beliefs and methods of breakfast being a healthy meal was initially identified by Abigail Carroll, the author of “The Invention of the American Meal”. She explained in her book that a campaign of religious moralization and advertising in the 1800s encouraged the idea of breakfast as the most significant meal of the day. And it was a trick to sell more bacon for breakfast, and eventually, it capitalized on the majority of misinformation around healthy diets to achieve the agendas of bacon producing firms. Edward Bernays, a PR expert appointed some doctors to sign off on the idea that the protein-rich breakfast of eggs and bacon was healthier than a light breakfast. He then published it in newspapers, and this thought eventually dispersed in the entire world.

A religious man named John Harvey Kellogg utilized the exact strategy to increase the sale of his ‘Kelloggs Cornflakes’. Thus, the breakfast was automatically considered as incredibly significant at the start of the day, despite lack of evidence. And it was followed for years in the entire world. However, modern science isn't so sure about breakfast being the most important meal of the day and a cure to obesity.

There is not much evidence that breakfast is a significant meal than others. Recent research has found that those who skip breakfast do not equalize by eating more later in the day and there were no significant disparities in metabolic rates between breakfast eaters and skippers. In this research, researchers from Monash University, Australia, examined 13 randomly monitored outcomes of breakfast. The study was conducted by Professor Katherine Sievert and Professor Flavia Cicuttini. They tracked the participants for less than a month. And on average, those who skipped their breakfast were a pound lighter than those who did not skip their breakfast. The researchers concluded that the addition of breakfast might not be a good strategy for weight loss regardless of established breakfast habits. But caution is required when advising breakfast for weight loss in adults, as it could also have contrary outcomes.

Monash University researchers similarly gave an opinion that eating breakfast could have other significant effects, such as improving attentiveness in children. However, Tim Spector, a professor at Genetics at King's Collge London and author of ‘The Diet Myth: The Real Science Behind What We Eat’, believes that breakfast has no unique primacy other than being the first meal after a long fast during the sleep, but the food manufacturers have hyped the concept of breakfast.

According to Tim, the belief of breakfast being the most important meal of the day had been rooted in most people from their childhood and it is enhanced by the campaigns of food manufacturers. But his conclusions suggested that it was just another diet myth that we follow in our daily lives. People have been told that breakfast helps our metabolism and that skipping it will make us hungrier and we will overeat. But a recent reasonable study had suggested that skipping breakfast can truly be a useful strategy to reduce weight. The British Medical Journal has moreover stated that “caution is needed when recommending breakfast for weight loss in adults, as it could have the opposite effect”.

Years of belief and habits have established a kind of thought about breakfast that we conveniently use in our daily lives. But modern science has resolved all the suspicions related to breakfast. Regardless of traditional beliefs and habits, breakfast may not be the best gateway to lose weight and live a healthy life all the time. 

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Reference:

• www.dailymail.co.uk
• www.bmj.com
• www.monash.edu
• www.researchgate.net