Breakfast

ABabilonia

So today I ran into this article:

https://www-m.cnn.com/2019/04/22/health/skipping-breakfast-cardiovascular-death-study/index.html?r=https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/04/22/health/skipping-breakfast-cardiovascular-death-study/index.html

In essence the article says that skipping breakfast is associated with heart disease. I, personally, rarely eat breakfast as I try to spread my calories throughout the day. I eat a decent lunch and a decent dinner, but I rarely, if ever, eat breakfast. I'm never short in my daily calorie intake, so no food shortage there. I try to do intermittent fasting most of the days as that has helped me to have a good handle of my calories. Any thoughts about this article?

Maxxitt

Included in that article: "However, the major issue is that the subjects who regularly skipped breakfast also had the most unhealthy lifestyle habits," she said. "Specifically, these people were former smokers, heavy drinkers, physically inactive, and also had poor diet quality and low family income."
All of those factors put people at a much higher risk for cardiovascular disease. "I realize that the study attempted to control for these confounders, but I think it's hard to tease apart breakfast skipping from their unhealthy lifestyle in general"

In other words, like many population health studies, making any judgments about causation of single variables like skipping breakfast is a fool's errand.

ABabilonia

Maxxitt wrote: »

In other words, like many population health studies, making any judgments about causation of single variables like skipping breakfast is a fool's errand.

Great point 🙂

Chelle8070

Ya know - when I did skip breakfast I was a smoker, not always a heavy drinker, definitely inactive and had a poor diet quality.... my income improved as of the last few years, but yeah. All those things make sense for me when I did skip breakfast.

Then I started working out and I cannot SKIP breakfast or I get sick to the stomach. 100 calorie protein shake just mixed with water around 730am and 3 hard boiled egg whites at 930 for 150 calories got me in the habit of not skipping breakfast.

I don't know about that heart disease thing, but I like fueling my body earlier in the day now

joeyzuraski

The breakfast part isn't the issue. What really is the issue is that nobody eats what's on this table. I'm a grab and go guy myself. They need to sell pineapple cut ups and apples in the store for me to grab. Or if I have the time to get them cut up in the house. My only problem with having them at the house such as a salad bag, you have 3 days to eat it then it'll start getting slimy and rotten.

You also need to plan on exercising. Such as I do Personal Training for 10 minutes for breakfast and 10 minutes for dinner. Sometimes 10 minutes for lunch but I can't let it interfere with my work.

cmriverside

@joeyzuraski

I eat everything that is on that table (and then some) almost every day. Well, I don't eat the crackers or pineapple but I eat blueberries, strawberries and a whole grain of some other sort. Crackers are one of my trigger foods, so I would need the whole box, there. They don't have any meat or fats in that mix other than nuts and eggs. I do eat meat and seafood.

I also don't buy salad bags. A head of romaine or red leaf lettuce will be three to five hundred grams and it will keep for longer than three days if it's not cut up.

You do have to be a little bit creative and make a plan to eat that fresh produce and shop for it every three or four days.

If you move to a big city, the grocery stores DO sell cut up fruits and vegetables in to go cups and containers. They cost three times as much, though. And they use plastic which adds to the landfill and environmental problems. . .but someone will do your work for you if you're willing to pay for it.

NadNight

Interesting article! Personally I’m a big breakfast lover but on the very rare occasions I miss breakfast I’ve had a smaller appetite throughout the day. I’ve found that the eating ‘within 30 minutes of waking up’ means I eat around 6 am which leaves me ravenous by 9am and I only work a desk job! Surely what a person is eating for breakfast has a bigger overall impact?

What works for me now is having a later breakfast after 9 am and keeping about 4-5 hours between meals (not 6 or 7 which lead to snacking and once I start I can’t stop)

I second what others have said about healthy options being more expensive. My favourite breakfast is porridge topped with raspberries and blueberries,honey and toasted seeds. And some of those ingredients cost a small fortune compared to a cheap box of cereal.

MikePTY

The media is so so bad at writing up health related stories. Like, so bad. This study has enough holes in it that you can drive a bus through it. They didn't define breakfast, and let people self define it. They collected data for a limited period of time and then tracked results decades later, not tracking if their habits changed. And while they controlled for some lifestyle factors, they didn't control for others.

This is all mentioned at the end of the article, after the writer spent the first many paragraphs basically saying that if you don't eat breakfast, you're gonna die. This type of absolutism in writing about health studies is why diet recommendations swing wildly all the time. I am sure Kellogg is happy with it though.

Caralarma

Unless you dont eat at all, there is no such thing as 'skipping breakfast'. Breakfast is when you break your fast- whether it's at 8am or 2pm. So basically the question is whether or not it's ok not to eat in the morning and it definitely is ok! It makes no difference what time you eat. Article is garbage