Healthy Bites

4 Reasons Why You Should Never Skip Breakfast

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A healthy breakfast
People who eat breakfast tend to have a lower risk of certain health conditions. (Image credit: Healthy breakfast photo via Shutterstock)

Are you tired of hearing about how breakfast is the most important meal of the day? Well, this advice probably not going to stop until more of us start eating our morning meals.

About 18 percent of males and 13 percent of females between the ages of 35 and 54 are breakfast skippers, according to a 2011 study by the market research company NPD group.

But the evidence that suggests that breakfast is a meal not-to-be-skipped is overwhelming. In fact, I have never encountered a study that suggests the opposite.

Here a look at some of the research showing the possible benefits of breakfast:

Diabetes: Skipping breakfast may increase a woman's diabetes risk, according to a study published this month in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Women who ate breakfast an average of zero to six times per week were at a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes than women who ate breakfast every day.  [9 Meal Schedules: When to Eat to Lose Weight]

Heart Disease: Eating breakfast was associated with a lower incidence of heart disease in men between ages 45 and 82, according to a July study in the journal Circulation. The study also found that skipping breakfast was associated with hypertension, insulin resistance and elevated blood sugar levels.

Memory: A 2005 Journal of the American Dietetic Association review of 47 breakfast-related studies found that eating breakfast is likely to improve cognitive function related to memory and test grades. Translation: Eating breakfast is a smart move!

Weight Loss: In one recent study, people who ate breakfast as their largest meal lost an average of 17.8 pounds over three months. The other participants consumed the same number of total calories per day, but ate most of their calories at dinner, according to the study published in July in the journal Obesity. The large-dinner group only lost an average of 7.3 pounds each over the same time period.

Healthy Bites appears weekly on LiveScience. Deborah Herlax Enos is a certified nutritionist and a health coach and weight loss expert in the Seattle area with more than 20 years of experience. Read more tips on her blog, Health in a Hurry!

Deborah Enos
Deborah Enos
CN
Deborah Enos, CN, also known as "The One-Minute Wellness Coach," is The Health Coach for busy, working people. She pares her good-health messages down to simple and fast bullet points that can impact lives in 60 seconds or less. Deborah serves as a board member of the American Heart Association.  In addition to writing the Healthy Bites column for Live Science, Deborah is a regular on FOX Business News, NBC and ABC, and is a frequent contributor to The Costco Connection, Parade Magazine, Self Magazine, Good Housekeeping and USA Today. Deborah is also The One Minute Wellness Coach for The Doctors TV Show.