Always eat breakfast is common advice. A Google search on benefits of eating breakfast found 930,000 hits including 4 Reasons Why You Should Never Skip Breakfast.(1). On the other hand, a Google search on benefits of skipping breakfast found 217,000 hits including 5 Reasons to Skip Breakfast.(2) Clearly both can’t be right.

Many studies have found associations between eating or skipping breakfast including(3,4):

Eating Breakfast

1. Decreased obesity
2. Lower cholesterol
3. Decreased hunger and subsequent eating later in the day

Skipping Breakfast

1. Decreased daily calories
2. Fewer medical claims
3. Less colon cancer in men

Other reported benefits from eating breakfast include improved mental alertness, increased activity, less television watching and less diabetes. For example, a study of 26,000 health professionals found that skipping breakfast was associated with a 27% higher risk of heart disease.(5)

Skipping breakfast is often promoted as a way of losing weight. Although, people who skip breakfast do eat more calories, later in the day, the total amount is less than the calories from breakfast. One study found, men’s weight increased with increased breakfast calories.(6)

Unfortunately, an association does not show a cause. People who eat more frequently also are more likely to have other healthy habits like exercising.(7) To sort this out, one must look at controlled studies. Controlled studies, especially long term studies of diet are hard to do and few exist. One two week study on increasing meal frequency in patients with diabetes, found no beneficial effect.(8) When treating obesity, another controlled study found no difference in weight loss between patients assigned to eat and those assigned to skip breakfast.(9) A review of the published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition concluded there was “belief beyond the evidence” that eating breakfast was helpful.(10)

Should you eat or skip breakfast? Each of us are unique individuals and studies ,,,,can only give guidance on what is best for you. As often happens, the evidence for the health benefits of breakfast are inconclusive. Eating the right foods, exercising, not smoking all appear to be more important than whether you eat or skip breakfast.

1. http://www.livescience.com/39598-reasons-never-skip-breakfast.html
2. http://www.details.com/blogs/daily-details/2013/08/5-reasons-to-skip-breakfast.html
3. Zilberter T, Zilberter EY: Breakfast: to skip or not to skip? Front Public Health. 2014 Jun 3;2:59. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2014.00059.
4. Wei JT, Connelly AE, Satia JA, Martin CF, Sandler RS.: Eating frequency and colon cancer risk. Nutr Cancer. 2004;50(1):16-22.
5. . Cahill LE, Chiuve SE, Mekary RA, Jensen MK, Flint AJ, Hu FB, Rimm EB: Prospective study of breakfast eating and incident coronary heart disease in a cohort of male US health professionals. Circulation. 2013 Jul 23;128(4):337-43. doi: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.113.001474.
6. Kent LM, Worsley A.: Breakfast size is related to body mass index for men, but not women. Nutr Res. 2010 Apr;30(4):240-5. doi: 10.1016/j.nutres.2010.03.006.
7. Holmbäck I, Ericson U, Gullberg B, Wirfält E.: A high eating frequency is associated with an overall healthy lifestyle in middle-aged men and women and reduced likelihood of general and central obesity in men. Br J Nutr. 2010 Oct;104(7):1065-73. doi: 10.1017/S0007114510001753. Epub 2010 May 26.
8. Thomsen C, Christiansen C, Rasmussen OW, Hermansen K: Comparison of the effects of two weeks’ intervention with different meal frequencies on glucose metabolism, insulin sensitivity and lipid levels in non-insulin-dependent diabetic patients. Ann Nutr Metab. 1997;41(3):173-80.
9. Schlundt DG1, Hill JO, Sbrocco T, Pope-Cordle J, Sharp T. The role of breakfast in the treatment of obesity: a randomized clinical trial. Am J Clin Nutr. 1992 Mar;55(3):645-51.
10. Brown AW, Bohan Brown MM, Allison DB: Belief beyond the evidence: using the proposed effect of breakfast on obesity to show 2 practices that distort scientific evidence. Am J Clin Nutr. 2013 Nov;98(5):1298-308. doi: 10.3945/ajcn.113.064410. Epub 2013 Sep 4