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Um, d'oh? Teenagers who regularly eat breakfast tend to weigh less, exercise more, and eat a more healthful diet than their breakfast-skipping homies, according to new research.
The study, which was published in the March 2008 issue of the journal Pediatrics, tracked the eating patterns, weight, and other lifestyle issues of 2,216 adolescents in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area of Minnesota for five years. The more regularly the teens ate breakfast, researchers found, the lower their body mass index. Teens who eschewed breakfast weighed an average of 5 pounds more than their counterparts who ate the meal every day. "What we found in the study was that kids who eat breakfast frequently, and especially every day, they're more healthy overall in terms of their lifestyle," Mark Pereira of the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, who led the study, tells Reuters. "They're much more physically active and they have a better diet overall. So they have lower fat intake, lower cholesterol intake, higher fiber intake."
An estimated 25 percent of U.S. children regularly head to school on an empty belly, according to the researchers. By partaking in what's commonly known as the "most important meal of the day," breakfast eaters may control their appetite better throughout the day, Pereira says, which might also prevent food binging at lunch or dinner. ::Reuters
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