Meta-analysis: Breakfast might not be a good strategy for weightloss
Jruzer
Posts: 3,501 Member
An analysis of 13 prior studies of the effect of breakfast on weight loss or on energy intake concludes:
Infographic from the journal:
https://www.bmj.com/content/364/bmj.l42
This study suggests that the addition of breakfast might not be a good strategy for weight loss, regardless of established breakfast habit. Caution is needed when recommending breakfast for weight loss in adults, as it could have the opposite effect.
Infographic from the journal:
https://www.bmj.com/content/364/bmj.l42
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Replies
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I see breakfast as a chicken-and-egg deal (no pun intended). Instead of breakfast making people healthier, people who care about their diets make it a point to eat breakfast because we're told it's good to eat breakfast. And then studies showed that people who eat breakfast are healthier, but it's not really breakfast that's doing it, it's more that the only people who bother are going to also bother for the rest of their meals.9
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i'd need to read all the individual studies to see what they were specifically examining - because the onyl thing that stuck out to me was that ppl who ate breakfast (in these studies) - on average ate 200cal more a day - but many of the study groups were small (20-50ppl; i only saw one that had more participants in the quick scan that i did)5
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That's the beautiful thing of calorie counting/MFP. It kind of makes the "should I eat breakfast" question irrelevant, because it's all about whatever fits in your calorie goals. Eat it, don't eat it, it don't matter. It matters a lot more when people aren't watching their intake.29
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I think it also might be said that breakfast eaters probably don't mindlessly eat at night, and therefore are hungry in the morning, and people who eat mindlessly at night may just not be hungry in the morning because they ate so much (and didn't realize it) the night before. I.e. they don't necessarily have to force themselves to eat breakfast because it's "good for them" but their habits dictate that they want to eat breakfast because they're actually hungry.9
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deannalfisher wrote: »i'd need to read all the individual studies to see what they were specifically examining - because the onyl thing that stuck out to me was that ppl who ate breakfast (in these studies) - on average ate 200cal more a day - but many of the study groups were small (20-50ppl; i only saw one that had more participants in the quick scan that i did)
This is what I got from the infographic too. It just looks like some people skipped a meal and didn't eat those calories later in the day. An infographic really is not a good way to get any detail about a scientific study, but overall this just looks like basic CICO.4 -
Anyone else not all that excited about an analysis that includes the sentence, "All studies were at high risk of bias, mostly because of lack of blinding, for both allocation and analysis." Right in the infographic?
The main thing I took away from this is that either the analysts were looking at the wrong correlation or they knew the headline , "breakfast may not be a good strategy for weight loss" is more intriguing than, "people who don't know how to regulate their caloric intake tend to eat more if they eat in more meals." Which is understandable.
I would say it's easier to eat under a specified intake if you split it into 2 meals instead of 3. If you're goal was 2100 calories, which is easier? Eating two meals of 1050 calories? Or 3 meals of 700? What about if your goal was 3000? Spreading it out more makes it easier to eat that amount because you dont need to stuff yourself as much at a time.
A bunch of the studies are less than 20 people, and some are done for less than a week. Not very convincing to me.8 -
I eat breakfast because I am hungry, not because somebody said it was healthy and something we should do. If I waited until lunch I would est the entire contents of the refrigerator.5
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Anyone else not all that excited about an analysis that includes the sentence, "All studies were at high risk of bias, mostly because of lack of blinding, for both allocation and analysis." Right in the infographic?
The main thing I took away from this is that either the analysts were looking at the wrong correlation or they knew the headline , "breakfast may not be a good strategy for weight loss" is more intriguing than, "people who don't know how to regulate their caloric intake tend to eat more if they eat in more meals." Which is understandable.
I would say it's easier to eat under a specified intake if you split it into 2 meals instead of 3. If you're goal was 2100 calories, which is easier? Eating two meals of 1050 calories? Or 3 meals of 700? What about if your goal was 3000? Spreading it out more makes it easier to eat that amount because you dont need to stuff yourself as much at a time.
A bunch of the studies are less than 20 people, and some are done for less than a week. Not very convincing to me.
I don't see lack of blinding as an issue, because you can't really blind breakfast. How would you trick someone into believing they had breakfast when they haven't? My issue with this analysis, as with most meta analyses that study nutrition, and regardless of any other poor design/conclusions, is that they are highly prone to confounding factors. I also have an issue with taking any study as a "proof" of anything. Averages are not individuals.
ETA: misread your post, thought it said double bliding. My point still stands, studies can show a direction to try, not a rule to generalize.2 -
No doubt the mechanism is CICO, but I personally find that eating breakfast counterintuitively makes me hungry for the rest of the morning. Which is why I’m currently experimenting with a very small breakfast and a rather larger elevenses.5
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I love breakfast!
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I love breakfast!
Me too.
But oddly it's a meal I find very easy to skip if I want to reduce calories. Eating breakfast or not is pretty much neutral as regards hunger by lunchtime for me.
Combining breakfast and lunch into a brunch also works for me as a calorie reduction method whereas cutting calories later in the day or restricting my snacks feels like a hardship.4 -
i will admit when i was doing my last cut cycle (dropped calories from 2700 to 1500 for a month) - that i found myself pushing off breakfast until later and later because i had less calories to use during the day and i didn't really miss it too much - but now that i'm back to my normal the thought of not having breakfast kills me0
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I have always been someone who needs breakfast, even before weight loss. It feels like there is a switch in my body that flips while I sleep and I wake up VERY hungry every morning, regardless of how much I ate or how late I ate the previous day. If I do not eat breakfast I start to feel weak and nauseous very quickly which makes it very hard to be productive at work or anything really. If I skip breakfast I will also tend to reach for whatever is convenient, regardless of calories or nutrition because I feel so horrible and just need to get back to normal. I will also be less likely to eat the pre-packed pre-logged lunch I have at work. For me, not eating breakfast can really derail my whole day.
ETA: I also need a fairly substantial breakfast, around 400 calories or so for me to feel good all day. I am not the person that can just have 1 hard boiled egg or a protein shake for breakfast.3 -
If you like to eat in the morning, eat in the morning. If you don't care to, you aren't harming yourself.5
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I'm enjoying everyone's comments on this.
The message is that breakfast isn't necessary, and may even be detrimental, to weight loss. Many of us regular posters already take this as truth, but the idea that "breakfast is the most important meal of the day" is well-established in western society outside the narrow confines of MFP.
Think of all the new posters who say "I don't like breakfast, but I know I have to eat something because BitMIMotD." For every poster who writes this on MFP and hears our responses that breakfast isn't necessary, there are probably a hundred thousand non-MFP dieters who believe that they have to eat within an hour of waking up or that dire consequences will follow.
If studies can get this info more out to the mainstream, including GPs, RDs, "nutritionists", interested laypeople, all the better.
(And keep in mind that these kinds of reviews are very important for scientific understanding - any one study or experiment doesn't prove anything definitively. It's the collective understanding reached by multiple investigators, confirmed by peer review, and repeated multiple times, that finally gets to scientific understanding.)4 -
I'm enjoying everyone's comments on this.
The message is that breakfast isn't necessary, and may even be detrimental, to weight loss. Many of us regular posters already take this as truth, but the idea that "breakfast is the most important meal of the day" is well-established in western society outside the narrow confines of MFP.
Think of all the new posters who say "I don't like breakfast, but I know I have to eat something because BitMIMotD." For every poster who writes this on MFP and hears our responses that breakfast isn't necessary, there are probably a hundred thousand non-MFP dieters who believe that they have to eat within an hour of waking up or that dire consequences will follow.
If studies can get this info more out to the mainstream, including GPs, RDs, "nutritionists", interested laypeople, all the better.
(And keep in mind that these kinds of reviews are very important for scientific understanding - any one study or experiment doesn't prove anything definitively. It's the collective understanding reached by multiple investigators, confirmed by peer review, and repeated multiple times, that finally gets to scientific understanding.)
I don't know if every regular poster takes this as truth, as you say. I think most acknowledge that breakfast isn't necessary, if it works for you go for it. If it doesn't, skip it. I've lost 45lbs having breakfast in the morning, and the infographic acknowledges that the studies all had high risk of bias. Not particularly helpful for scientific understanding, actually.2 -
I'm enjoying everyone's comments on this.
The message is that breakfast isn't necessary, and may even be detrimental, to weight loss. Many of us regular posters already take this as truth, but the idea that "breakfast is the most important meal of the day" is well-established in western society outside the narrow confines of MFP.
Think of all the new posters who say "I don't like breakfast, but I know I have to eat something because BitMIMotD." For every poster who writes this on MFP and hears our responses that breakfast isn't necessary, there are probably a hundred thousand non-MFP dieters who believe that they have to eat within an hour of waking up or that dire consequences will follow.
If studies can get this info more out to the mainstream, including GPs, RDs, "nutritionists", interested laypeople, all the better.
(And keep in mind that these kinds of reviews are very important for scientific understanding - any one study or experiment doesn't prove anything definitively. It's the collective understanding reached by multiple investigators, confirmed by peer review, and repeated multiple times, that finally gets to scientific understanding.)
I don't think that this is the message of the meta-analysis. The message seems to be that skipping a meal may be one way to achieve a calorie deficit. Calling breakfast potentially "detrimental to weight loss" appears to be an overstatement of the findings.
In addition, many of the studies appear to be quite limited. For example, four of them lasted only a week or even less, and you can't tell much about fat loss in one week. If those folks' weight changed, it could very well be normal water fluctuation, and/or skipping breakfast may only work in the short term.
We don't know, for example, whether those who skip breakfast may eventually get hungrier later in the day. I know I could skip breakfast for a couple days and be okay (and some of the studies only lasted two days!). But if I did it every day, I might end up having a bigger lunch or more snacks.
I would need to read the individual studies to get much more out of it than that, but I would caution against stretching the research to interpretations that are not directly and clearly supported by data.3 -
MichelleSilverleaf wrote: »Not particularly helpful for scientific understanding, actually.
I'm curious why you would say this. Why did the British Medical Journal publish it, then? Presumably the editors and reviewers thought it added value.0 -
I found the following comments from the author in the discussion section of the article. I thought they were worth repeating:On behalf of out team, I thank those who raised interesting discussion points regarding this paper. We agree that skipping breakfast is not for everyone. Indeed there are some populations eg diabetic patients on treatment, where distributing calories over the course of the day may be advisable. However, there is no doubt that one of the major medical and public health challenges facing us is the obesity epidemic. We are not winning. It is important that as part of dealing with this challenge we question our beliefs about obesity.
This study came about after I repeatedly saw patients with knee osteoarthritis who were obese, went to seek advice on what to do regarding their weight, and almost invariably were told they need to eat breakfast. A number would then complain that they were really struggling to eat breakfast, they just didn't feel hungry. It never made sense to me that we should be asking people to eat when they are not hungry.
There are some people who love eating breakfast. Others who just don't feel hungry at that time. The key message from this meta-analysis is there there is no evidence that in order to lose weight, we should advise people to change their eating patterns to include breakfast. We found that eating breakfast resulted in an average 260 extra calories per day, and the average weight gain mirrored this, 0.44kg over an average of 7 weeks.
People vary, their needs vary, their preferences vary. However the message that 'breakfast is the most important meal of the day' is very strongly believed in the community and among health porfessionals, to the point that many people are apologetic if they say they miss breakfast, on the assumption that they are not 'being healthy.'
One of the overwhelming responses to our study has been a relief among those who don't eat breakfast, that it is fine to skip it!2 -
MichelleSilverleaf wrote: »Not particularly helpful for scientific understanding, actually.
I'm curious why you would say this. Why did the British Medical Journal publish it, then? Presumably the editors and reviewers thought it added value.
Think about it; a study where the reported results are potentially highly biased. How do you expect accuracy or even objectivity when the results are biased? Where are the controls? Four studies lasting a week isn't going to tell anyone anything accurate. I don't know why BMJ published it, wouldn't be the first time a journal published a not-great study.1 -
MichelleSilverleaf wrote: »Not particularly helpful for scientific understanding, actually.
I'm curious why you would say this. Why did the British Medical Journal publish it, then? Presumably the editors and reviewers thought it added value.
I agree. A scientific journal publishing a study doesn't mean that it has to draw a causative conclusion. Sometimes it's "we did a thing, and this thing happened, could it be this?". Basically a "did a study to test a hypothesis, ended up with another hypothesis" type deal. It's the 24-hour news cycle that draws unnecessary conclusions lololol.5 -
I love breakfast but I find skipping it the easiest way to cut some calories. if not skip it entirely, at least delay it until later in the morning. It pushes back my lunch and eliminates the need for a snack in the afternoon. I find it kind of sad whenever someone's weight loss advice is "you need to stop skipping breakfast" and that's it. If that's the only change someone makes, they're just adding an additional 300-500 calories to their day and will gain weight.2
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Great. Just what the world needs.
More BS articles by eggheads with nothing better to do.8 -
and honestly - EVERYONE has breakfast in some shape or size - if you use the etimology to break your fast - however, they are categorizing it as your typical (i'm assuming) cereal/milk western breakfast - heck you could have pizza at 10am and if it was your first meal of the day, its technically breakfast...things i muse on when i'm trying to not do work3
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If I take a person that was in a mode of gaining weight and ask them to skip breakfast for a week it might result in weight loss. If I ask that same person to continue skipping breakfast with no other instructions for an additional year the weight gain can easily resume. The calorie creep could take time or happen very quickly but removing a meal doesn't mean anything if you don't change your habits along with it.
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It appears to me that this particular study was performed and published for the sake of publishing a study. The conclusion is actually a complete non-conclusion, and basically says "we took data from a bunch of studies we stipulate were poor quality and derived a conclusion that's so vague it's essentially meaningless." It's ideal however for including in click-bait lists of "FIVE THINGS YOU MIGHT BE DOING THAT ARE KEEPING YOU FROM LOSING WEIGHT!!!"
Conclusion This study suggests that the addition of breakfast might not be a good strategy for weight loss, regardless of established breakfast habit. Caution is needed when recommending breakfast for weight loss in adults, as it could have the opposite effect. Further randomised controlled trials of high quality are needed to examine the role of breakfast eating in the approach to weight management.3 -
I guess I'm (nearly) the only one who thinks it's worthwhile to do and publish an analysis of multiple studies**, in order to summarize the case against the oft-published*** idea that eating breakfast is important for weight loss.
** which, not surprisingly, happen to be of the typical quality of weight-management studies (because better ones are way hard and really expensive)
*** in popular-press sources
Breakfast is important to me so that I don't screw up all my (few remaining) social relationships (by intense crankiness-induced verbal hostility) in the hours before lunch; so that I don't fall asleep in the middle of driving down the highway to the river or Y; and so that I don't hit a wall during the rowing or the spin class.
Imma keep eating breakfast.
The conclusion just says "don't add breakfast in order to lose weight", not "don't eat breakfast if you want breakfast".
P.S. I have no problem with assistant professors (or whatever stage they're at) doing publications like this, which take relatively little time, but provide the most reasonable information summary that's realistic currently, in order to beef up their vitae and improve their chances of receiving tenure, and of receiving funding for more in-depth studies.7 -
Well I have IBS so if I don't eat breakfast i would be in the bathroom for the rest of today dying inside1
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It appears to me that this particular study was performed and published for the sake of publishing a study. The conclusion is actually a complete non-conclusion, and basically says "we took data from a bunch of studies we stipulate were poor quality and derived a conclusion that's so vague it's essentially meaningless." It's ideal however for including in click-bait lists of "FIVE THINGS YOU MIGHT BE DOING THAT ARE KEEPING YOU FROM LOSING WEIGHT!!!"
Conclusion This study suggests that the addition of breakfast might not be a good strategy for weight loss, regardless of established breakfast habit. Caution is needed when recommending breakfast for weight loss in adults, as it could have the opposite effect. Further randomised controlled trials of high quality are needed to examine the role of breakfast eating in the approach to weight management.
I do agree. Garbage in = garbage out. If you take poor data and try to come up with conclusions from it, you will get poor conclusions.
If the data is fine and shows a slight correlation between skipping breakfast and losing weight, then it would be worthwhile to see if the same correlation occurs when skipping lunch or supper. I imagine this is not as specific as skipping breakfast, but is more like skipping a meal in general.1 -
I guess I'm (nearly) the only one who thinks it's worthwhile to do and publish an analysis of multiple studies**, in order to summarize the case against the oft-published*** idea that eating breakfast is important for weight loss.
** which, not surprisingly, happen to be of the typical quality of weight-management studies (because better ones are way hard and really expensive)
*** in popular-press sources
Breakfast is important to me so that I don't screw up all my (few remaining) social relationships (by intense crankiness-induced verbal hostility) in the hours before lunch; so that I don't fall asleep in the middle of driving down the highway to the river or Y; and so that I don't hit a wall during the rowing or the spin class.
Imma keep eating breakfast.
The conclusion just says "don't add breakfast in order to lose weight", not "don't eat breakfast if you want breakfast".
P.S. I have no problem with assistant professors (or whatever stage they're at) doing publications like this, which take relatively little time, but provide the most reasonable information summary that's realistic currently, in order to beef up their vitae and improve their chances of receiving tenure, and of receiving funding for more in-depth studies.
Agreed, I'm a little surprised by this thread direction. To me it seems like this group did some summarizing research to give a little pushback to "breakfast is important for dieters".
To me the conclusion quoted above pretty much says that. IMHO they are saying "Stop telling people they have to eat breakfast, that eating breakfast is integral to successful weight loss, because it's not." <shrug>5
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