Skip breakfast? Researchers warn of nutrient gaps

Adults who skip breakfast are likely missing outimportant nutrients, which are most commonly found in the foods that make up theMorning mealsexist, according to a new study.

An analysis of data from more than 30,000 U.S. adults showed that skipping breakfast is likely to result in bingeing for the entire dayfewer nutrients takes to himself. Just think of the calcium in milk, the vitamin C in fruit, and the fiber, vitamins and minerals found in breakfast cereals. In this sample, 15.2 percent of participants, or 4,924 adults, reported skipping breakfast.

“What we see is that if you don't eat the foods that are commonly eaten for breakfast in the morning, you tend not to eat them the rest of the day either. So these common breakfast nutrients become oneNutrition gapsays Christopher Taylor, professor of medical dietetics at The Ohio State University College of Medicine and lead author of the study.

Most research related to breakfast has focused on the effects of missing a morning mealChildren at schoolconcentrated, which includes difficulty concentrating and behavior problems. While adults know that breakfast is important, they don't know exactly what the real impact of skipping it is.

The researchers translated the food data into nutrient estimates and then compared those estimates to recommended nutrient intakes. With several measured key recommendations, from fiber and magnesium to copper and zinc, hadSkipping breakfast has fewer vitamins and mineralsrecorded as people who had breakfast. The differences were most pronouncedFolic acid, calcium, iron and vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, C and D.

The breakfast skippers also had oneoverall poorer nutritional qualitythan those who had breakfast. For example, they were more likely to consume more added sugar, carbohydrates, and total fat throughout the day than those who ate breakfast in the morning.

Snacking“essentially contributes to the caloric intake of a meal in people who skipped breakfast,” Taylor said. "People who ate breakfast consumed more calories overall than people who didn't eat breakfast, but lunch, dinner and snack meals were much larger in people who skipped breakfast and tended to have lower diet quality."