What do people think: Does breakfast matter? Is breakfast really important?
With the seasons changing and flu season approaching I have been thinking about ways to boost my immune system, immediately, something that came to mind, which we all have complete control over, is diet. Is what I am eating really promoting a healing environment in my body? Can I maintain homeostasis by eating better?
When I do come down with a cold, chicken soup and tea are what I swear by. Tea has lots of anti-oxidants in it, which are good for the immune system. Chicken soup, from what my mother tells me, has something in the broth that helps.
But what about eating well right before I get sick, that way maybe I could skip being sick all together. Part of my personal problem is that I live on campus. Food choices are poor and the cafeteria hours are not accommodating, especially during weekends, when they close at 6:30 p.m. on Fridays.
I have never been a notably healthy eater, my friends and family always joke saying that I can justify eating the unhealthiest of foods. This is true. But, lately I have noticed that something needs to change in my diet, a piece is missing, and that piece might be breakfast.
All through high school and college I have skipped breakfast. Come to think of it, I don’t really recall there being much breakfast eating in grammar school years, as I got older and started taking care of myself in the morning.
I want to know what other people think about breakfast. Do you believe in eating breakfast? Does it “jump start” your day? Have you noticed that you get sick less often if you eat breakfast?
For the longest time, I guess I just didn’t “believe in” breakfast. I would always tell myself to just holdout until lunch. Then lunchtime would come around and I would feel all shaky and absolutely starving and I would eat and be really full and not hungry again for hours, throwing off my dinner schedule.
Upon doing some research, I discovered that not only is breakfast important, but eating the right kind of breakfast is important. Eating a good breakfast will make you less hungry during the day; therefore, since your body is not craving food so much, you will eat less.
Blood sugar plays a major role in all of this. The “shakiness” that I have/had been feeling was probably due to the fact that I had such low blood sugar levels by the time I ate lunch, which usually is around 1:30 p.m. or 2:00 p.m. Also, by this point in time, a person’s body is probably in starvation mode , which means that as soon as a person eats, his or her body immediately stores away the food as fat. Obviously this would cause an inner tug-of-war.
BBC News website stated in an article that: ‘“Breakfast can be a very good source of vitamins. Many processed cereals are fortified with vitamins and minerals which people can find it difficult to get elsewhere if they are just having two meals a day.”’ It was funny to see this in writing because it is something that my mother always says. She said that breakfast cereals have lots of vitamins and minerals, such as iron . Since I became interested in this topic, and started looking into it, I learned that it was even possible to see iron in breakfast cereal by using a magnet and some other supplies (see hyperlink if interested). Without iron and other vitamins and minerals, a person can feel weak and have low energy levels.
So, yesterday I experimented with the thought of breakfast and filled up a snack bag of Raisin Bran. I ate it in the morning and stopped when I was hungry. I then ate a moderate lunch, and later on in the afternoon finished the bag as a snack. I feel that adding this to my diet, at least for that one day was beneficial. I had a lot more energy and did not need to eat as big of a lunch. Also, I felt as though I got a better night’s sleep, which contributes to a healthy immune system.
What do others think of eating breakfast? I think I may actually consider eating it on a regular basis.
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8 comments:
Breakfast is very important to me. I have noticed a big difference in the past two years since I began eating a normal and balanced breakfast every morning. When I first became vegetarian I was concerned about getting sick all of the time and not getting the nurishment my body needed. The change I decided to make was adding a daily muti-vitamin and a healthy breakfast to my morning routine. I can honestly say I have never felt better. I find I am more alert during the day and last longer until my body is ready for lunch. Breakfast is something that nobody should skip no matter how little time they have every morning.
I have been eating breakfast on a regular basis as of late, and there's no difference whether I do or don't.
I've been sick last week eating breakfast all the while, and healthy in previous instances when I haven't. Obviously that's subjective and a small sample size, but it's my experience that it has minimal effect.
Everyone's body is different. What is good for one person may not be great for another. Maybe it has physiological effects, I'm not a doctor, (shocking, I know.) but I would imagine it's more a placebo effect.
Personally, the biggest difference in my health was the time I quit soda and sugary/carbonated drinks. That was when I never felt better.
Breakfast is a very important meal of the day-Doctors mention it al the time.
I was like you and never ate breakfast in the morning. My mother would cook it on the weekends, and I would eat it because I love her cooking. During the weekdays I would go hungry and wait until lunch.
My mom thought I was eating breakfast at school, but I would skip it. I think it had a lot to do with the taste of the foods that were served at my school. I didn't find it to be very appetizing and I wasn't used to the usual American breakfast just yet.
Finally, in middle school I got really sick and almost passed out one day because my energy was so low. I had to be carried out in a wheel chair. That week when I went to see my Dr. she informed me that my low energy was due to me not eating breakfast.
It's as simple as eating an apple, having a piece of toast or some cereal.
Now, I eat breakfast and even when I was on campus I still had the choice of eating a healthy breakfast or not so healthy breakfast. It comes down to what you choose.
Breakfast is an important meal of the day and everyone should take that seriously.
This post brings about an interesting idea that links iron to a necessity in not only breakfast,but a healthy diet. I am anemic and have an iron deficiency causing my iron levels to drop every so often. I try to eat small somewhat healthy snacks throughout the day to keep my iron level at a normal level. I also try really hard to eat a lot of green vegetables, especially spinach.
According to Terrificscience.org, cereals like Wheaties and Total are iron-fortified foods that can prevent anemia and fatique because iron is necessary for carrying oxygen through the blood and to the muscles. The website states that a healthy adult needs 18 miligrams of iron every day.
Although many of us know that iron is found is green vegetables, fish and redmeats, we can get a daily dose of iron by simply eating breakfast.
The bottom line is that, as college students, we need to develop healthy eating habits through our college years to carry them through into the rest of our lives. We should start with eating iron for breakfast.
I have never been one to eat breakfast. And then I usually snack at about three and eat at dinner. I used to eat breakfast, at my grandfather's insistance when I went to his house before school during my junior high school years. I felt no difference then and no difference now. I feel that I'm always alert and I don't get sick very often.
My sister, on the other hand, must eat breakfast in the morning for a few reasons. One, she feels tired. Two, she feels sick. And three, she starving. I gues it's to each his own...
Breakfast foods are my favorite! I could eat eggs, hashbrowns and bacon for every meal... except for breakfast! I rarely get the chance to indulge in a full breakfast, so I usually save it for a leisurely hungover Friday/Saturday/Sunday meal. I've definitely fallen out of a normal eating habit because of class schedules and work. But, like kdorau says, everybody is different. I usually get to eat one or two full meals a day and feel okay for the most part. Of course I get tired, but that might have to do with going to bed at 2 or 3 every night... hmmm.
I need to eat breakfast on a daily basis. It's not the fact that most breakfast foods are the best, but its been a medical reason as of late.
6 years ago I had my thyroid removed for reasons I don't really want to discuss... just know that it's not there. Since then I've been taking a replacement hormone pill. For those that don't know, the thyroid controls how quickly the body burns energy and makes protein.
With the Synthroid pill i have to take EVERY day comes a diet of breakfast, lunch and dinner. Since the pill can only do so much, the rest has to come from me and how conscious I am with my own situation. Breakfast is vital to this equation because I will have absolutely no energy if it's skipped, same goes for lunch and dinner.
Breakfast, to me is not that important in the mornings, unless i can get up early and head to the gym then I need it but other than that I can without it. That probably has something do with the fact that when I played Basketball in High School, I would never eat on game day due to nerves and it just became a ritual so my body has adapted to being able to cope with skipping Breakfast.
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