Eating breakfast may not only make people lose weight,
but can also make them more physically active and reduce food intake
later in the day, reveals a study.
According to the
team, increasing activity can improve health in sedentary people, making
them more active by controlling their blood sugar levels.
“Despite
many people offering opinions about whether or not you should eat
breakfast, to date, there has been a lack of rigorous scientific
evidence showing how, or whether, breakfast might cause changes in our
health,” said lead researcher James Betts from the University of Bath in
Britain.
The results highlight some of these
impacts, but “how important” breakfast is still really depends on the
individual and their own personal goals, Betts added.
The team wanted to study the possible links between breakfast, body weight and health.
In the study, published in
The
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
, researchers split obese individuals aged 21 to 60 into two groups:
“fasting” and “breakfasting”, measuring several outcomes during a
six-week period.
The “breakfasting” group was asked
to eat at least 700 calories by 11 a.m., which the first half of the
group consumed within at least two hours of waking up.
The fasting group was allowed only water until noon.
“For
example, if weight loss is the key, there is little to suggest that
just having breakfast or skipping it will matter. However, based on
other markers of a healthy lifestyle, like being more active or
controlling blood sugar levels, there is evidence that breakfast may
help,” Betts noted.
It is important to bear in mind that not everybody responds in the same way to breakfast, and that not all breakfasts are equal.
“The
effects of a sugary cereal, compared to a high-protein breakfast, are
likely to be quite different,” said Enhad Chowdhury, another researcher.
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