4 reasons why you need to eat breakfast

I think part of the problem, McKayMachina, is that most of us probably get a lot of condescending and fairly inaccurate advice related to weight loss. At this point I'm so tired of being told that I need breakfast, can't eat peanut butter, can't eat at night, can't eat all of my calories in one meal or twenty if I please, must eat "3-5 small meals" per day, can't drink my calories, can't grocery shop when I'm hungry... you get the point. I am personally pretty quick to speak out against things like that. While I did not take the advice as a command from engineman, it seems like something that is too often an unsolicited and condescending suggestion.

Well said.

So when when people publish "studies" we really should take it with a grain of salt.


Did you go to the link to the article on the study? It goes on to say that " it is not yet clear to researchers whether the relationship between breakfast and obesity is causal (i.e., breakfast consumption directly influences weight) or merely associational. Breakfast may play a supporting role in weight management, rather than a starring one. "

It could just be that it is a habit that tends to go along with other healthy habits.

I'm not sure why this is such a hot button issue here. I had no idea people would get so worked up over the topic...or is it just that we get defensive when people post things that don't correlate with our diet?

I am not a person that believes 'one size fits all.' I don't feel that the same diet works for everyone or the same healthy lifestyle fits everyone. However, for me, this fits. I'm cranky without my morning fuel and espresso alone won't do the trick. If I don't eat early, I eat late and when I eat late, I make bad choices. That's all.

I suppose I was referring more to the phrase from your original quoted text, " A study from the American Journal of Epidemiology found that people who skipped breakfast were 4.5 times more likely to be obese."

It's academically disingenuous to use that statement without acknowledging the fact (in someplace other than the conclusion) that you can't actually extend that math out to a general population. I'm sure the study did find those numbers to be the case, but they're not really that important to people who didn't actually participate in the study.

And getting more general here, I guess my underlying concern is the overall tone of the text the OP quoted. There's lots of generalizations made, inappropriately so. The OP didn't make them, his stance seems to be very open, but the text did.

And if people really didn't know that eating to fend off hunger and hunger-related problems throughout the day is beneficial, then I suppose spreading the information has a use. To be honest, the entire topic seems like ti should be common sense, but we know what common sense isn't.