Many overweight people skip breakfast hoping to shed a few kilos. A recent study found that about 25% of American women skip breakfast to save the calories it provides and lose weight. Unfortunately, most of them gained weight instead, because they ate much more at lunch to make up for the hunger that built up through the morning.
Another American team, at the University of Colorado, studied 3,000 people who had lost at least 30 pounds (about 15 kg) on a low-calorie diet and then kept the weight off for a year or more by eating breakfast every day. Another study found that women who ate cooked whole grains (wheat or oats) for breakfast, with a glass of low-fat milk or a small egg or cheese sandwich (about 300 calories in all), lost more weight than women who skipped breakfast altogether.
The fibre in breakfast grains, fruit and vegetables takes up space in the stomach. Together with the protein in milk, cheese or eggs, it calms hunger and keeps you feeling full until lunch, around three in the afternoon.
Skipping the first meal of the day also leaves an overweight person with a foggy brain, slow thinking and a weak body, so they can't work well. They stay very hungry all morning, and at lunch they take in more calories than they thought they had saved.
Nutritionists stress that overweight people should not skip breakfast to lose weight: it makes them so hungry that they eat more at lunch, quite apart from the effect of going without food on how well the brain and body work in the morning.
By Dr Mohieddin Omar Labniyeh, nutrition consultant
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