KEY POINTS:
Teenagers who eat breakfast tend to weigh less, exercise more and eat a more healthful diet than their breakfast-skipping peers, US researchers have found.
The study involved 2216 adolescents in the Minneapolis-St Paul area of Minnesota whose eating patterns, weight and other lifestyle issues were tracked for five years. They were just under 15 years old when they entered the study, which was published in the journal Pediatrics.
The more regularly the teens ate breakfast, the lower their body mass index was. BMI is a measure of body weight relative to height. Those who always skipped breakfast on average weighed about 2.3kg more than their peers who ate the meal every day.
"What we found was that kids who eat breakfast frequently, and especially every day, they're more healthy overall in terms of their lifestyle," said Mark Pereira, who led the study.
"They're much more physically active and they have a better diet overall. So they have lower fat intake, lower cholesterol intake, higher fibre intake." About 25 per cent of US children often skip breakfast, but youth obesity rates are rising.
It may seem illogical that people who skip a meal are fatter than those who eat it all the time.
Pereira theorised that by filling their stomachs in the morning, breakfast eaters may control their appetite better throughout the day, avoiding food binges at lunch or dinner.
By touting the merits of breakfast, Pereira may not be encouraging young people to grab a chocolate-coated doughnut or dig into sugary cereal loaded with marshmallows.
"In general, there's lots of opportunities within the context of a breakfast meal to make healthy choices," he said.
"Ready-to-eat breakfast cereals can be high in sugar, but they also can be high in fibre and nutrients. And they can be consumed with low-fat milk and maybe some fruit or fruit juice. On the other hand, there's opportunities, just like there always is with every meal, to make poor choices."
- REUTERS
