Getting Breakfast Right

We all know that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, yet a surprising number of us still can’t find the breakfast balance.

Eating a large breakfast doesn’t mean you will consume less calories throughout the day say German researchers. Both eating no breakfast and eating a large breakfast have been claimed to help you lose weight, however it seems that neither is correct.

The latest study, published in the nutrition journal showed that people who ate large breakfasts still ate the same at lunch and dinner. The team who conducted the survey followed 400 people for two weeks; some had large breakfasts, some had small breakfasts and others skipped meals all together. In order to stamp out the confusion brought about by various different findings over the years this survey measured the daily calorie intake in two different way; what people ate in absolute terms, and the ratio of their breakfast calories to their total daily calories.

Those who consumed a large breakfast, usually consisting of 400 calories more than a small breakfast, consumed 400 more calories overall throughout the day. Lead researcher, Dr Volker Schusdziarra said: "The results of the study showed that people ate the same at lunch and dinner, regardless of what they had for breakfast." However, other experts say that more studies need to be carried out in order to determine whether reducing your calorie intake at breakfast actually leads to weight loss.

It seems that the lovely people at Kellogg’s knew what they were talking about too. Their cereal adverts always said that eating a healthy breakfast was better for you than skipping it all together. It seems that skipping breakfast just means we eat more throughout the day to compensate for the missed meal. Those mid morning snack to keep us going until lunch are likely to be a lot less healthy than having a healthy breakfast, therefore backfiring on the whole point of skipping breakfast in the first place.

Female First- Rachael Patan