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Researchers at the University of London have found that kids who don't eat breakfast are twice as likely to be overweight or obese as are their counterparts who regularly have a healthy morning meal. The study tracked the height and weight of about 15,000 five-year-olds and compared their weight with their eating habits.

"The study revealed that children who were obese were about twice as likely not to eat breakfast as children of normal weight. Researchers also found those with unemployed parents were almost three times as likely to go without breakfast as those whose mothers and fathers were both working."

Researchers speculated on reasons for the connection between breakfast and obesity, citing - among other possible factors - the likelihood that someone who skips breakfast will snack more and eat more sugary foods than someone who doesn't. They also theorized that the parents of children who skip breakfast may be less attentive to nutritional issues in general, and therefore may be more likely to provide less healthy food. Source: The London News

Labels: eating-habits, lifestyle, breakfast

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Michael Phelps has done it; he's won more gold medals in swimming than any other Olympic athlete in history. Beginning mid-September, his face will appear on cereal boxes of ... Frosted Flakes. The decision has drawn sharp criticism from health experts.

"The announcement yesterday that Phelps... would grace Frosted Flakes and Corn Flakes boxes instead of the traditional athlete's choice of Wheaties left many perplexed. Frosted Flakes has three times the amount of sugar as Wheaties and 1/3 the fiber."

Those things don't matter much to someone like Phelps who consumes 12,000 calories a day, but to parents and pediatricians concerned about childhood obesity, it sends the wrong message. Source: New York Daily News

Labels: role_models, influences, breakfast

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An eight-month study of dieting women found that eating a large breakfast with plenty of proteins and carbohydrates helped control hunger, reduce their cravings for carbs, and maintain weight losses.

Researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University put a group of 46 women on a very low-carb diet of less than 1100 calories per day. Another group of 48 women went on a diet of 1240 calories, with half their calories coming during breakfast.

Four months after going on their diets, the first group had lost 28 pounds and the breakfast group lost 23. However, four months after that, the low carb dieters had regained 18 pounds, while the breakfast group had lost another 16 pounds.

Dr. Daniela Jakubowicz, who presented the study at the annual meeting of the Endocrine Society, said low-carb diets are not good ways to lose weight because "they exacerbate the craving for carbohydrates." Only 5 percent of such dieters are successful after two years, she said.

Labels: diet, long_term_weight_loss, breakfast

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An Australian study found that teens that eat a balanced breakfast with a variety of nutrients from different food groups show improved moods and behaviors.

Each time a child added a new choice from a different food group, he or she would score higher on tests for mood and behaviors on questionnaires completed by their parents, regardless of family income or the child's weight or exercise routine.

"It didn't matter what they added, just that they added something different like a banana to their cereal to make that meal more complete with vitamins and minerals," said lead researcher Therese O'Sullivan of the Telethon Institute for Child Health in Perth.

She and her colleagues analyzed breakfasts of more than 800 14-year-olds over a three-day period. Many skipped breakfast completely, and the vast majority ate from only one or two food groups.

Labels: nutrition, breakfast, variety

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