Skipping breakfast doesn’t influence later meals

Skipping breakfast may not change how much food a child eats during the rest of the day. But missing the morning meal still carries consequences.

Breakfast is an important part of a healthy diet. A healthy breakfast provides many important nutrients that are crucial for children’s growth and development. Children who skip breakfast may not make up for those missing nutrients later in the day.
Some evidence has suggested that the increasingly common practice of skipping breakfast could lead children to overeat at later meals, and eventually put on extra weight. Yet few studies have rigorously tested whether that’s what really happens.

Researchers set out to assess the effect of skipping breakfast on appetite and total calories consumed during the rest of the day among 21 kids in America between the ages of 8 and 10 years, most of whom were regular breakfast eaters. Each child visited the testing lab twice. One time they were fed a breakfast of cereal, milk, banana and orange juice; on the other visit they were not. On both occasions, the children were later served lunch, which they could choose from an array of foods – including pasta, broccoli and cookies – and were told that they could eat as much or as little as they wanted over a period of 20 minutes. The children were then free to leave the lab and parents reported back what the kids consumed during the remainder of the day.

Source: doctor.ndtv.com