Want to Be Slim? Eat Breakfast

According to a new study, published in the journal Pediatrics, teens that do not have breakfast are more likely to be obese, at least by an average of five pounds. This is what researchers at the University of Minnesota found and have published recently.

The study

More than 2200 teenagers were enrolled in the study. They were all from the St. Paul and Minneapolis middle and high schools. Diet and weight were recorded during a 2-year period. The study was repeated twice in 1998-99 and 2003-2004.

The study found that almost 19% of boys skipped breakfast while almost 14% of girls did it. Also the study found that non-white teenagers were among the teens that skipped breakfast the most. As expected kids coming from low income homes were among the skippers but also the study mentioned that some teenagers (girls specially) said they skip breakfast to lose weight.

This is a misconception among teenagers and people in general since all studies have shown that breakfast is a good food habit. In fact the study showed that teens that skipped breakfast were 5 pounds heavier, ate less healthy food and exercised less than those who did not skip breakfast.

The growing problem of obesity in teens

Experts have seen an increase in the obesity rate for adolescents. In the last 20 years it has tripled, according to a 2007 report by the U.S. Surgeon General's Office. AS known for adults obesity has been linked to cholesterol problems, blood pressure, asthma and diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases. Although this has not been established for kids and teens it is expected that an obese teen will have more health issues than a non-obese kid.

Possible causes

The study does not get into explaining possible causes of the rise of teen obesity. However, one possible explanation is the prevalence of daily consumption of fast food and junk food among teens. In fact, a lunchtime survey for more than 1600 kids in Australia showed that 90% of the children had junk food in their lunch boxes.[9]

Drinking soft drinks may also be another unhealthy eating/drinking leading to teen obesity. In a study, children were found to be 1.6 times more prone to be obese for each soft drink they took daily.

Project EAT (Eating Among Teens)

EAT has been conducted by the Division of Epidemiology and Community Health of the University of Minnesota and it is aimed at establishing causes for obesity in adolescence. Skipping breakfast has shown in this study (one of the main outcome of Project EAT) that it may be a cause for teen obesity so the authors believe that breakfast should be promoted as a healthy food habit among teens to avoid getting them more and more into the obesity problem.

Sources:

Breakfast Eating and Weight Change in a 5-Year Prospective Analysis of Adolescents: Project EAT (Eating Among Teens)

Sanigorski AM, Bell AC, Kremer PJ, Swinburn BA (2005). "Lunchbox contents of Australian school children: room for improvement". Eur J Clin Nutr 59 (11): 1310-6. URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16034359

^ James J, Kerr D (2005). "Prevention of childhood obesity by reducing soft drinks". Int J Obes (Lond) 29 Suppl 2: S54-7 URL : http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16385753