For decades, we’ve been told that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. But is this time-honored advice actually backed by science, or is it just another nutrition myth we’ve collectively swallowed?
The familiar refrain—skip breakfast, risk obesity and heart disease—has become so ingrained in our collective consciousness that many of us feel guilty hitting snooze instead of the kitchen. The phrase “breakfast” literally means “to break the fast” after sleeping, a concept that gained prominence as “the most important meal” back in the 1960s. One review of 14 observational studies found that eating breakfast seven days a week correlates with reduced risks of heart disease, diabetes, and obesity.
The Correlation Conundrum
But correlation isn’t causation. While the link between skipping breakfast and higher obesity rates is well-established, intervention studies haven’t clearly confirmed that one directly causes the other, according to a recent analysis in the literature. It might be that overweight individuals are more likely to delay eating as a weight management strategy, not that skipping breakfast itself leads to weight gain.
In fact, the relationship might be entirely backward from what we’ve been led to believe. “Having breakfast is likely to be a proxy factor for a healthy lifestyle rather than an independent protective factor against disease,” notes one source. Translation: breakfast eaters might just have healthier habits overall.
What about the claim that breakfast helps control appetite and prevents overeating later? The evidence doesn’t stack up there either. Despite widespread promotion of breakfast as a weight management tool, studies have found “none of the studies showed a decrease in the sum of calories consumed across the study period when breakfast was eaten rather than skipped.” That’s right—eating breakfast doesn’t necessarily reduce your total daily calorie intake compared to skipping it.
The Weight Loss Question
Could skipping breakfast actually help with weight loss? Surprisingly, the answer might be yes. A 2019 meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials discovered that breakfast skippers lost about half a kilogram more than breakfast eaters and consumed roughly 260 fewer calories per day. While these results aren’t dramatic, they do suggest that skipping breakfast could be a defensible weight loss strategy for some people.
That said, individual responses vary widely. For some, breakfast provides essential morning fuel and helps establish healthy eating patterns. Athletes and growing children, in particular, might benefit from not skipping this meal. The same research that found weight benefits from breakfast skipping also noted it didn’t impair afternoon resistance training performance—good news for gym-goers worried about their morning routine.
So where does this leave the average person standing bleary-eyed in front of their refrigerator at 7 a.m.?
The most reasonable conclusion seems to be that breakfast isn’t inherently special or magical. It’s simply another meal—one that works well for some lifestyles and physical needs, but isn’t mandatory for everyone. The “most important meal” crown appears to have been somewhat prematurely awarded, more marketing triumph than nutritional necessity.
Perhaps the real takeaway isn’t about when you eat, but what your overall dietary pattern looks like across the entire day. In the breakfast debate, as with so much nutrition advice, the boring truth emerges once again: what works best probably depends on who you are.