The Breakfast Diet Keeps the Weight Off

A few flakes of corn or wheat, add a couple of slices of a banana or sprinkle some berries around splashing on some milk or take steaming hot from the nuke chamber a ceramic bowl filled with oatmeal and raisins or even go au naturel with the crunchiest of homemade granola, fruit and slurp fresh squeezed orange juice, pulp and all, and the result is teenagers most of all have an inbuilt mechanism that controls weight gain. People spend billions of dollars a year trying to find the magic weight loss recipe. Another study proves again, a simple regular affair every morning, such as breakfast keeps the weight off, especially for teens. Cereal through the lips, keeps weight off da hips should be the high school cheer.

"There's a pretty significant inverse association between how frequently kids report eating breakfast and how much weight they gain over time, and we took into account other dietary factors and physical activity," said Mark Pereira, co-author of the study, published in the March issue of Pediatrics.

"It's interesting to note that the kids who eat breakfast on a daily basis overall have a much better diet and are more physically active," Pereira said.

Added Dr. Peter Richel, chief of pediatrics at Northern Westchester Hospital Center in Mount Kisco, N.Y.: "Grandma and Mom are right. When we skip breakfast, especially in the teenage years, then kids tend to snack and graze."

An estimated 12 percent to 34 percent of children and adolescents skip breakfast on a regular basis, a number that increases with age. Previous studies have linked breakfast skipping with a greater tendency to gain weight.

Stop skipping the breakfast of champions, the magically delicious, and the floating O's made of honey nuts and oats. For weight conscious teens, the incentive is built in and keeps them healthier longer. Not to mention more alert and less lethargic, acting as if they were seventy years past their prime. For those with a bit more time and resources the choices of having a hot meal in the morning complete with hot cakes and other griddle delights keep you away from the horrors of the vending machines and more alert for the day's challenges. take it from someone whose father made a hot breakfast every morning for year. Thanks Daddy, you did a world of good!

The Project EAT study, titled “Breakfast Eating and Weight Change in a 5-Year Prospective Analysis of Adolescents: Project EAT,” started five years ago when study participants were adolescents. Now in their teens, those who ate breakfast daily are thinner and have a lower body mass index (BMI) than those that frequently skipped breakfast. BMI is a measurement used to determine risk of obesity.

Many people, including teens, think skipping breakfast is an effective way to limit calories but the opposite is actually true, according to Dianne Neumark-Sztainer, PhD, Project EAT’s principal investigator. Skipping breakfast leads to overeating later in the day, especially in the evenings.

No one should take this to mean that the stuff coated with frosting on cereal, bread, or with huge amounts of high fructose corn syrup on other donut enticements is a-OK. It's not. The onset of juvenile diabetes is reaching epidemic levels and being overweight to the point of obesity is now a common accepted recurring nightmare based on food choices made by price, not eating a nutritional breakfast or the level of sugar on the product that makes the unwary succumb to how bad it actually is after the sugar rush melts away. Eating products with a heart healthy and high cholesterol inhibitor, such as in the oat family is usually a great way to go.


Too help with breakfast, a book from about a young Korean teen who is just lost in teenage angst about how to make his lonely life work, especially in his neck of suburbia. David Yoo brings details that will make one wince and laughter to the teen saga, Girls for Breakfast. Reading and eating breakfast at the same time is GREAT!