I’ve seen this thrown around a lot lately, “oh you’ve got to have breakfast otherwise your body will go into starvation mode”. Does this sound familiar? “If you don’t eat your breakfast your body will store fat for when you’ll need it, so if you eat your body knows to let go of those fat stores because it knows it’ll get fed”. It sounds familiar to me, I was one of those folks who used to say it! Forcing porridge down my partner’s neck needlessly. If only I could have said to her “not hungry? Don’t worry about it”.
First and foremost, let’s get this straight out the way… your body does not hold onto anything when it’s hungry! That is just false, nope, not right!
If we look into where the genuine notion of where starvation mode may have come from, there is some correlation that if we were to skip breakfast then we are more likely to reach for something quick and easy on the way into work. Studies have shown that “less health seeking individuals” miss breakfast which means that generally, people who skip breakfast aren’t as concerned with their dietary health of someone who does. But as always, I would never say anything without evidence and this is no different there was shown a study done back in 2015 where they tested just that and the conclusion was the same, after all, it’s just common sense right? (1) However, correlation is not the same as causation, so just because MOST people who skip breakfast are likely to eat rubbish that does not mean that just because you skip breakfast you will eat rubbish.
“But Shaun, what about the children in Kenya they all have bellies and they eat nothing, Debra down the fitness club told me that’s because they don’t enough food and they’re fat!”
Tell Debra to pipe down! Those kids in Kenya are not fat, they’re malnourished, the reason for the belly is they have a condition related to a protein deficiency called Kwashiorkor (oh yes, this boy knows his stuff! Ha).
I’m not saying don’t eat breakfast, I have breakfast every morning and love it! What I am trying to say is you don’t need to if you don’t want to. You should be allowed to make your own choices, the best diet is one you can stick to. You want breakfast then get scrambling that egg, prefer to save those calories and have a bigger evening meal then go for it!
- Uemura et al 2015
- Bath Breakfast Study – Betts et all 2014