Skipping breakfast doesn’t affect weight loss, study says

With unpredictable schedules and day-to-day activities that rarely fall into the “routine” category, nurses often find themselves skipping meals. Because of this, dieting can become something of a challenge.

However, a new study shows that skipping breakfast doesn’t affect weight loss for those dieting, despite the traditional wisdom that a nutritious breakfast is a healthy way to start your day.

The study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, looked at over 300 healthy overweight and obese people, with one group eating breakfast before 10 a.m. and the other group not consuming any calories before 11 a.m. A third group was made up of 44 people who had always skipped breakfast and 52 people who already regularly ate their morning meal.

Morning eating habits did not affect weight loss in the study participants in any way. Researchers told CBS News that eating or not eating breakfast “didn’t really make a difference” from a weight loss perspective.

Before you celebrate the fact that the cereal you skipped this morning won’t affect you, researchers also said that just because this study shows no influence on weight loss, it also doesn’t mean that you should make a habit of skipping breakfast.

“It’s not always just about weight,” Keith Ayoob, an associate clinical professor involved in the study, told CBS. “I always encourage people to eat breakfast. I want people to eat a healthy diet and breakfast is often a meal of habit.”

“Healthy diet” is the key word there, and the CBS article also points out that the study did not take into account what participants ate throughout the rest of the day.

Have you seen your breakfast habits affect your weight loss goals? Are you in the habit of regularly starting your day with a nutrious breakfast? Let us know in the comments!