People often say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and they’re right. As its name suggests, eating breakfast breaks the fast that people have been on all night. It gives you more glucose, which gives you more energy and makes you more alert. It also gives you other essential nutrients for good health.
Many studies have shown that eating breakfast is good for your health. In the short term, it gives you more energy and helps you focus. In the long term, it can help you lose weight and lower your risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease.
Table of Contents
Benefits of Eating Breakfast
When you wake up in the morning after sleeping all night, it may have been up to 10 hours since you last ate. Breakfast helps your body get more energy and nutrients.
Energy
The body gets its energy from glucose. Carbohydrates you eat are broken down and used to make glucose. Fat is where the body stores most of its energy. But your body also stores some glucose as glycogen. Most of this glycogen is found in your liver, while smaller amounts are found in your muscles.
When you don’t eat, like when you sleep, your liver breaks down glycogen into glucose and sends it into your bloodstream to keep your blood sugar levels stable. This is important for your brain, which gets almost all of its energy from glucose.
If you haven’t eaten for as long as 12 hours, your glycogen stores are low in the morning. Once your glycogen stores are empty, your body starts breaking down fatty acids to get the energy it needs. But without carbs, fatty acids are only partially burned, which can make you feel less energetic. In case you want to monitor your glucose level you can have a blood glucose random test.
Eating breakfast gives you more energy and fills up your glycogen stores so that your metabolism can keep going all day.
It might seem like a good way to cut back on calories to skip breakfast. But research shows that people who eat breakfast are usually more active in the morning than those who don’t eat until later in the day, even though they eat more calories.
Essential Vitamins, Minerals, and Nutrients
Key nutrients like folate, calcium, iron, B vitamins, and fiber are found in a lot of breakfast foods. Breakfast gives you a lot of the nutrients you need for the whole day. One study shows that children who eat breakfast are more likely to get the vitamins and minerals they need than people who don’t.
Essential vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients can only be found in food. Even though your body can usually find enough energy to get you to the next meal, you still need to get more vitamins and minerals to stay healthy and full of life.
Breakfast Helps You Keep Your Weight Under Control
People who eat breakfast every day are less likely to be fat or overweight. Scientists are still trying to figure out why this is the case. People think that eating breakfast might help them keep their weight in check because:
It keeps your blood sugar from going up and down a lot, which helps you control your appetite.
Breakfast fills you up before you’re really hungry, so you’re less likely to grab whatever is around when you’re really hungry.
Breakfast Helps You Think Better
If you don’t eat breakfast, you might feel tired and find it hard to concentrate. This is because your brain hasn’t gotten the fuel it needs to get going. Studies show that not eating breakfast hurts your mental performance, including your ability to pay attention, focus, and remember things. This can make some things seem harder than they normally would.
One study reveals that Having breakfast is linked to good results for diet quality, micronutrient intake, weight status, academic performance, and lifestyle factors among children.
Children and teens who eat breakfast every day also tend to do better in school than those who skip breakfast.
A Healthy Breakfast May Lower The Chance Of Getting Sick
People who eat breakfast every day are less likely to be overweight or develop type 2 diabetes than those who don’t. Some evidence also suggests that people who don’t eat breakfast may have a higher risk of heart disease.
Breakfast Helps You Make Better Food Decisions
People who eat breakfast tend to eat better overall, have better eating habits, and are less likely to be hungry for snacks during the day than people who don’t eat breakfast. Children who don’t get enough food for breakfast are more likely to make bad food choices for the rest of the day and in the long run.
People who skip breakfast often eat snacks in the middle of the morning or in the afternoon. This can be a problem if the snacks are high in fat and salt but low in fiber, vitamins, and minerals. Some people feel tired without the extra energy that breakfast can give them, so they turn to high-energy foods and drinks to get them through the day.
If you skip breakfast there are many side effects. Try a healthy snack like fresh fruit, yogurt, veggie sticks, and hummus, or a whole-grain sandwich, to keep you from getting hungry in the middle of the morning.
Can’t Face Eating Breakfast?
Some people just can’t eat first thing in the morning. This could be because their last meal of the day was late at night, they don’t like typical breakfast foods, or eating first thing in the morning makes them sick.
If you find it hard to eat first thing in the morning, you could try cutting down on the size of your dinner, and eating it earlier will make you hungry in the morning. Checking out some new recipes and stocking your kitchen with different kinds of food can make you more hungry for breakfast.
Instead of breakfast, you could have morning tea or a snack in the middle of the morning. You could try some of the portable breakfast ideas above so you have healthy options ready to go when you’re hungry for breakfast in the middle of the morning.
Things You Should Know
Having a healthy breakfast is a good way to start the day. Breakfast gives your body the fuel it needs, improves your mood, helps you focus, keeps you at a healthy weight, and is the basis of a healthy diet. Eating a healthy breakfast can be quick and easy, and it can help you all day long. You can ask your nearest doctor to help you in selecting nutritious food for breakfast.
