tl;dr

Eating breakfast is good for you because it sets your body on eating schedule, it gives you energy when you most need it, it provides you with the necessary nutrients, and also helps you lower the risk of diabetes.

Breakfast does not necessarily need to be consumed first thing in the morning, but it is a healthy way to nutritiously fill your body with energy that will help you function when most needed in the right way, without the unhealthy habit of going long hours without eating, or maybe overeating at a later hour just because you missed breakfast.

Assistant professor of nutrition sciences Courtney Peterson comments on a study about whether skipping breakfast affects your metabolism, and she says that, while the study may have shown weight loss for people who skipped breakfast, this is something that can backfire because of the increased ‘inflammation’ later in the day, and the potentially excessive eating later.

Breakfast helps set a healthier schedule and way of life. Indeed, compared to ‘people who don’t have breakfast, those who regularly eat breakfast tend to have a lower risk of both obesity and type 2 diabetes’ (Better Health Channel). For me, skipping meals does not cut it as a dietary habit and it is not a viable way to stay healthy.

Everything should be consumed in moderation, but there is also the matter of metabolism. As Dr. Peterson adds, ‘[y]our metabolism and blood sugar control are better in the morning than they are in the evening and at night, so it makes sense to eat more food earlier in the day’. Eating breakfast is a necessary’. Eating a healthy breakfast can stabilise your metabolism.

Works Cited

‘Here's What Skipping Breakfast Does to Your Body’ https://time.com/4786181/skipping-breakfast-health-benefits/ [accessed 01 February 2021].

‘Breakfast’ https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/breakfast#:~:text=Many%20studies%20have%20shown%20the,disease%20in%20the%20long%20term. [accessed 01 February 2021].

The benefits of intermittent fasting cannot be ignored (which sees no eating until noon). Intermittent fasting has been studied by Matt Mason ph.D for 25 years, he argues our bodies have evolved to go without food for hours, as hunter gatherers we took a long time to search for our next meal.[1] If we constantly eat, we are not giving our body time to burn our fat stores- leading to obesity.

The benefits of fasting have been proven by many studies. Cabo et al discovered this diet lowers blood pressure, improves glucose regulation, stress resistance, etc.[2] In turn, breakfast may not be as essential and good for us as we are often taught.

References:
[1] https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/intermittent-fasting-what-is-it-and-how-does-it-work

[2] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmra1905136?casa_token=-oOGRunZrC4AAAAA%3AZF8Uh-0jLkj2uS9scJfOfEB5e9cErxW62l_fDjI9wGmUMrrc8TGKqrErWN6Puo1SgKYIDaLCnWe6qQ

TL;DR- It's almost universal advice to eat breakfast in the morning to live a healthy lifestyle. However, there's conflicting evidence in health studies with some physicians arguing that there are few links between weight loss and consuming breakfast. Some scholars argue breakfast eaters tend to be healthier and leaner than breakfast-skippers due to the fact that breakfast eaters have other healthy lifestyle habits.

Personally, as a breakfast eater, I do enjoy eating waffles or an omelet in the morning, but I eat it for other health reasons aside from having a healthy lifestyle. But I never thought breakfast was all that great and I didn't eat for most of my life up until I was an adult. However, one can't help to notice that breakfast is a big deal, and it's constantly promoted by parents, doctors, even schools, and the workplace. Statistics show that two-thirds of adults in the UK eat breakfast regularly and around three-quarters of Americans eat breakfast [1].

Several studies indicate that breakfast eaters tend to be healthier. For example, they are less likely to be overweight and have a lower risk of chronic diseases. This can lead us to think that breakfast is linked to good health but the observations only show that people who eat breakfast are more likely to be healthier, but they don't indicate that breakfast itself caused it [2].

For example, of a study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in which 52 obese women took part in a 12-week weight loss program. Every participant had the same number of calories over the day, but half had breakfast, while the other half did not [3].

Findings showed that it wasn’t the breakfast that caused the participants to lose weight, but changing their daily health routine did. The women who said before the study that they usually ate breakfast lost 9kg when they stopped having breakfast, compared to 6kg in the breakfast group. Meanwhile, breakfast skippers lost 8kg when they started eating it – and 6kg when they continued to skip breakfast.

Therefore, having breakfast is still good for you, but it's the habits that come from pursuing a new diet and becoming more informed on your food consumption that makes you healthier.

[1] 'Is breakfast really the most important meal of the day' https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20181126-is-breakfast-good-for-your-health#:~:text=Early%20findings%20suggest%20that%20a%20bigger%20breakfast%20is%20beneficial%20to%20weight%20control.&text=Breakfast%20has%20been%20found%20to,risk%20of%20type%202%20diabetes

[2] 'Is Skipping Breakfast Bad for You? The Surprising Truth' https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/is-skipping-breakfast-bad

[3] The role of breakfast In the treatment of obesity: a randomized clinical trial. https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/55.3.645

It's also worth noting that what you eat for breakfast strongly affects health, maybe more than whether or not you eat food in the morning. This is relevant because there is an absurd amount of sugar in most breakfast foods (cereal, granola, breakfast muffins/scones, pancakes/waffles, some yogurts); research has shown that the average American breakfast contains more sugar than any other nutrient. And bacon/sausage (often processed) aren't great for you either:(.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6163505/

TL;DR - Breakfast is not essential for a healthy diet, but if you enjoy it, IT IS GREAT!

• Skipping breakfast is not longer as dramatic as it once sounded. As mentioned, intermittent fasting is a great way to lose weight or eat healthily. Pushing back your breakfast or just going straight for lunch is actually quite good for you.

• Breakfast is not the most important meal of the day - This branding by Kellogg's was just to entice you into enjoying your morning cereal. As I said, if you enjoy it, it is not a problem but it may not be as good for you as you believe. As Sofia explained, the hidden sugars in breakfast products is often abnormally high!

• If you enjoy breakfast then it is good for you! Your mental health and physical energy levels may benefit form having breakfast so it shouldn't be just ruled out as BAD or UNNECESSARY.

Some are hungry in the morning and some are not, it really is subjective.

Its not a black and white scenario

• fasting is good for you and its a myth that you need to eat breakfast
• In school children there seems to be a small benefit to breakfast in regards to concentration children are growing and need more food.
• The most important thing is that when you break a fast you get enough protein to encourage protein synthesis/growth and repair.
• you can have an unhealthy breakfast like cereal which in excess can contribute to obesity.
• you gain more weight at night due to certain mechanisms and it can disrupt sleep so eating a heavy breakfast and small/no dinner is also benifical