Breakfast is the most important meal of the day if the old adage is to be believed.
Any health practitioner will tell you that eating a healthy meal in the morning has endless health benefits.
When you skip breakfast, your body doesn’t get that fuel from food, you may feel zapped of energy - and you'll be more likely to overeat later in the day. Breakfast also gives you a chance to get in some vitamins and nutrients from healthy foods like dairy, grains, and fruits.
Many studies have linked eating breakfast to good health, including better memory and concentration, lower levels of “bad” LDL cholesterol, and lower chances of getting diabetes, heart disease, and being overweight.
It’s hard to know, though, if breakfast causes these healthy habits or if people who eat it have healthier lifestyles.
But this much is clear: WebMD says skipping the morning meal can throw off your body’s rhythm of fasting and eating. When you wake up, the blood sugar your body needs to make your muscles and brain work their best is usually low. Breakfast helps replenish it.
If your body doesn’t get that fuel from food, you may feel zapped of energy - and you'll be more likely to overeat later in the day.
Researchers from the University of Hohenheim in Germany tested 17 healthy adults on three separate days: once when they skipped breakfast, once when they had three regular meals and once when they skipped dinner.
Despite the change in scheduling, the calorie content and breakdown of carbohydrates, fat and protein were the same on all three days. (On days with a skipped meal, the other two meals had extra calories to make up for it.) Each day, blood samples were collected frequently from 7am until 9pm to measure hormone levels, glucose and insulin concentrations, and immune cell activity.
Watch: What skipping breakfast does to your body