
There’s Nothing Magical About Breakfast - hvo
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/24/upshot/sorry-theres-nothing-magical-about-breakfast.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
======
mmastrac
This reads like "I don't eat breakfast, so here's the reasons why I'm right."
Studies that support his conclusion, while flawed, are probably right. Studies
that oppose it are obviously tainted by various problems.

The fact that research shows that breakfast is actually beneficial for
children is hand-waved away because 'reasons'.

This is honestly just a low-quality, cherry-picked opinion piece by someone
who really doesn't like breakfast.

~~~
coldtea
> _This reads like "I don't eat breakfast, so here's the reasons why I'm
> right."_

Actually he gives very reasoned arguments and comments on meta-studies showing
that he is right -- not that breakfast is bad, but in that it doesn't make any
difference, and if it does nobody has clearly shown it.

(a) . In a paper published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in
2013, researchers reviewed the literature on the effect of breakfast on
obesity to look specifically at this issue. They first noted that nutrition
researchers love to publish results showing a correlation between skipping
breakfast and obesity.

(b) However, they also found major flaws in the reporting of findings. People
were consistently biased in interpreting their results in favor of a
relationship between skipping breakfast and obesity. They improperly used
causal language to describe their results. They misleadingly cited others’
results. And they also improperly used causal language in citing others’
results.

(c) Few randomized controlled trials exist. Those that do, although
methodologically weak like most nutrition studies, don’t support the necessity
of breakfast.

(d) Further confusing the field is a 2014 study (with more financial conflicts
of interest than I thought possible) that found that getting breakfast
skippers to eat breakfast, and getting breakfast eaters to skip breakfast,
made no difference with respect to weight loss. But a 1992 trial that did the
same thing found that both groups lost weight. A balanced perspective would
acknowledge that we have no idea what’s going on.

(e) Many of the studies are funded by the food industry, which has a clear
bias. Kellogg funded a highly cited article that found that cereal for
breakfast is associated with being thinner. The Quaker Oats Center of
Excellence (part of PepsiCo) financed a trial that showed that eating oatmeal
or frosted cornflakes reduces weight and cholesterol (if you eat it in a
highly controlled setting each weekday for four weeks).

Your comment however, reads exactly like you describe his, but for the
opposite preference.

~~~
mmastrac
(a), (b), (d), and (e) are where he's argued that support for "breakfast is
good" is methodologically weak, but then he goes and brings out (c) as an
argument for his conclusion, while also being methodologically weak at the
same time.

You've also neglected to mention (f), where the author discusses studies that
show that breakfast is beneficial to children and then handwaves both of them
away:

> What about the argument that children who eat breakfast behave and perform
> better in school? Systematic reviews find that this is often the case.

and

> It has been found that children who skip breakfast are more likely to be
> overweight than children who eat two breakfasts.

~~~
ethbro
The quote between your two selected lines

> One of the reasons that breakfast seems to improve children’s learning and
> progress is that, unfortunately, too many don’t get enough to eat. [...]
> It’s not hard to imagine that children who are hungry will do better if they
> are nourished.

Seems a pretty valid point as opposed to handwaving. Nutrition research in
general has a pretty studious history of ignoring results in an attempt to
support pre-existing conclusions.

For support of last statement, see
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11444941](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11444941)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-ration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-ration)
(side note: military nutrition has a long and interesting involvement with
civilian nutrition guidelines)

------
seanwilson
It seems pretty clear our understanding of diet is still in its infancy and
news sites need to stop reporting every small piece of diet evidence as advice
people should follow. Journalists in general need to do a much better job of
explaining how robust new evidence is.

I love this website for health science news and wish there were more like it:
[http://www.nhs.uk/news/Pages/NewsIndex.aspx](http://www.nhs.uk/news/Pages/NewsIndex.aspx)

In each article they break down what the actual study was, how robust the
evidence is and what it says in the context of other research which you never
see in mainstream press.

For example, this article traces a flurry of headlines in the mainstream press
about the importance of breakfast back to the original research and critically
looks at the evidence in depth:
[http://www.nhs.uk/news/2014/08August/Pages/Breakfast-
not%20t...](http://www.nhs.uk/news/2014/08August/Pages/Breakfast-not%20the-
most-important-meal-of-the-day.aspx) It nearly always end in "needs further
study" but it's sad there's no incentive for news outlets to have more
accurate science reporting.

~~~
maxerickson
I'd say it is at least a ways into adolescence. Understanding vitamins and
trace minerals was a pretty big step forward.

~~~
curun1r
I actually think it wasn't. It was our first foray into nutritionalism [1],
which is the belief that foods can be deconstructed, analyzed, and
reconstructed and still be healthy. This has proven wrong over and over again.
No matter how much we discover about what our foods contain, it's been
consistent over the past 150 or so years that when we process food, it removes
healthy stuff that doesn't get reintroduced when we try to add it back in.

The discovery of vitamins led to Wonder Bread, when we thought that we could
make highly processed white flour healthy by adding vitamins. We now know that
Wonder Bread, despite the vitamins, is one of the least healthy things you can
put into your body since it basically converts directly to sugar. And that's
just one example, the middle of a supermarket is replete with boxes of
processed foods which claims to have added healthy stuff that have
consistently made the people who consume them less healthy than the people who
get their food from the produce and deli aisles, where there's no added
vitamins and no such health claims.

If we've learned one immutable truth from recent health studies, it's that
we're really bad at constructing foods that are healthier than what nature has
already constructed. That's not to say that we shouldn't continue to try to
learn about what's in the foods we eat, but that information should be used to
constitute a diet of natural foods rather than foods engineered to be healthy.

Research, especially when it's reported without understanding like the media
typically does, leads to fads that almost always turn out to be wrong. It's
how we spent 4 decades trying to eat low fat which led to the highest obesity
and diabetes rates ever. Meanwhile, those eating traditional diets based on
the foods that their ancestors have eaten for generations are consistently
healthier. Given that we know so much more about vitamins and minerals than
they do, how is that they're so much healthier than us? If our understanding
of vitamins hasn't made us healthier, is it really a big step forward?

[1] [https://metasteve.wordpress.com/2010/02/14/in-defense-of-
foo...](https://metasteve.wordpress.com/2010/02/14/in-defense-of-food-
part-2-nutritionalism/)

~~~
iopq
Except for people who eat Soylent, they're so far alive and healthy.

~~~
magicbeanss
I've never been so sad as when I read the New Yorker profile[1] of the creator
of Soylent. Most people understand that food can be extremely healthful, and
is a crucial part of culture and social bonding.

[1] [http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/05/12/the-end-of-
food](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/05/12/the-end-of-food)

~~~
ghaff
It's not so much the idea of smoothies or protein shakes or yogurt drinks or
whatever (tasty) on-the-go nutrition you choose. It's the mentality around
"lifehacking" and my work being too important and all-consuming to partake in
the types of life activities that the muggles do.

------
steego
I'm sure there are many breakfast food manufacturers who would vehemently
disagree with this article.

I recall hearing a story about how the father of modern public relations and
propaganda (Eddie Bernays) played a key role in making sure that bacon and
eggs were a part of an American breakfast. You can watch him in this interview
explain how he created and manipulated a poll of 5,000 physicians to convince
the public they should be eating a heavy breakfast consisting of bacon and
eggs.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLudEZpMjKU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLudEZpMjKU)

~~~
douche
Bacon and eggs is still better than a sugar-blasted bowl of breakfast cereal,
which it seems we are thankfully getting away from as the default breakfast.

~~~
pessimizer
Of course that's not what they taught us in school, which was that we were
supposed to have a pile of carbs with more carbs sprinkled on top and wash it
down with carb juice and milk. Bacon and eggs would kill you by clogging your
heart with pan drippings.

~~~
collyw
Is there any scientific evidence that carbs are bad? It seems to be true on
the internet, but I would prefer to see some proper peer reviewed studies.

~~~
pessimizer
Carbs aren't bad, they're just calorie-rich, hard on the pancreas and less
satisfying than not-carbs, so you eat more of them.

~~~
collyw
They are as calorie rich as protein gram for gram, and less than half of fat.
Have you any evidence for the other two claims?

~~~
pizza
[http://www.gnolls.org/2407/when-satiety-fails-why-are-we-
hun...](http://www.gnolls.org/2407/when-satiety-fails-why-are-we-hungry-
part-4/)

------
Cozumel
'What made breakfast into a distinct meal dominated by cold cereal? Ad
campaigns like the one that coined the phrase "breakfast is the most important
meal of the day" in 1944.'

[http://priceonomics.com/how-breakfast-became-a-
thing/](http://priceonomics.com/how-breakfast-became-a-thing/)

~~~
swanson
Thanks! Was looking for a comment about this. So many of the long surviving
'myths' seem to be traceable back to an advertising campaign.

------
MOARDONGZPLZ
Yikes, I hate to be "that" person, but when I pulled up that link it was worse
than a paywall. They said I can either subscribe, or whitelist them on my
adblocker. No preview of the content or anything.

No thanks, I'll take a pass on the malware this time and just read the
comments from people willing to get through on here.

~~~
zodPod
No need to hate being that person! The bullshit paywalls are obnoxious! It's
good to know I'm not the only one annoyed!

~~~
sd8f9iu
Honestly, how are they obnoxious? They're asking you to pay for a service. I
wish there were more paywalls in online journalism. Low-quality ad-funded
journalism is how we get clickbait and crap like the Huffington Post.

~~~
nkohari
Do you subscribe to all of the sites with paywalls?

~~~
SomeCallMeTim
Not the grandparent, but I don't run an ad blocker, which is how I "pay" for
the sites. I do run NoScript, but I'll enable sites like the NYT.

It's sad how the entitlement mentality convinces people that they not only
have the right to consume all media on the web for free, but they also have
the absolute, inalienable right to view it without looking at ads. Because the

It seems very juvenile to me. "I want everything for free, even if it does
cost money to create, and if I can't have it free, I'm going to post to
complain about it!"

------
markbnj
I'd be interested to know whether the author eats in the evening. I don't
think he mentioned one way or another. I don't eat anything after a light
dinner and I usually wake up very hungry. I'm not saying one way is better
than the other, but if someone typically sleeps 6 to 8 hours starting at, say,
Midnight, and the last meal prior to retiring was at 7 PM, that is 12-13 hours
without food.

~~~
jaggederest
I usually fast for 16 hours a day, and I don't wake up hungry at all. Usually
I only start to get hungry around the ~14-15 hour mark.

Hunger is something that can be trained, not simply a static phenomenon.
There's a reason you get hungry when you smell something delicious. If you eat
every day shortly after waking up, I'd certainly expect to be hungry at that
time.

~~~
TillE
Yeah, when I was doing keto for weight loss for a few months, I just naturally
ate one big meal in the evening, and usually a snack of almonds a few hours
before. And that's it.

I was never particularly hungry during my accidental 16-ish hour "fast". In
fact, I usually had to force myself to eat a bit extra just to bring my daily
calorie count up to something reasonable.

------
pizza
Honestly, fasting for >16 hr/d >> eating breakfast, in my experience. Pet-
theory is that you get a lil' neurotransmitter upregulation as an added
benefit ;)

Thoughts?

~~~
brahmwg
Anecdata, but I've found the same. I have more energy and better performance
(for physical activity and cognitive activity) when I fast for the majority of
the day.

Not a fan of gimmicky diets but my eating pattern seems similar to "the
warrior diet", look it up if you're curious. I just think that in nature (if
we were wild humans) we wouldn't have access to a huge meal right out of bed,
We'd have to work hard all day to hunt and gather our food, then celebrate as
a group with a food orgy around the fire.... okay I got a bit carried away :P

------
gravypod
Isn't the first meal that you eat in the day your "breakfast?"

Because wouldn't that be the time you "break" your "fast".

~~~
cmurf
Yes from the "words have meaning" point of view, breakfast is unavoidable.

~~~
hawleyal
There are other points of view?

~~~
jerf
Taking your question seriously, yes. Two major schools of thought are
"prescriptive" vs. "descriptive". This terms are usually applied to the noun
"grammar" but it works for vocabulary, too. See:
[http://amyrey.web.unc.edu/classes/ling-101-online/tutorials/...](http://amyrey.web.unc.edu/classes/ling-101-online/tutorials/understanding-
prescriptive-vs-descriptive-grammar/)

Descriptively, breakfast is clearly an early-morning meal eaten within an hour
or two of the end of sleep. There is also, at least in America where I can
speak for it, a set of associated "breakfast foods", making it reasonable to
"have breakfast for dinner" and most people know what you mean. (i.e., even my
5-year-old knew precisely what that meant when I first said it, so one should
carefully consider one's internet-pedant options before claiming that makes no
sense :) ) Prescriptively one could make a case for "the meal that breaks your
fast", though I daresay it would be a rather weak case. The term "fast" is
almost dead in modern American English, though it may be making a comeback via
things like Intermittent Fasting:
[https://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2013/08/06/a-beginners-
guid...](https://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2013/08/06/a-beginners-guide-to-
intermittent-fasting/) (Which, for the purposes of this post, I'm merely
pointing out a word usage. Though I do it myself now, I'm not defending or
advocating it here.)

------
askyourmother
My breakfast was magical - amazing smoked kippers, marmalade and toast,
freshly roasted and ground filter coffee, a handful of fresh berries, and that
was just the first course!

~~~
internaut
Waffles at the right time with coffee can be magical.

------
EGreg
Here's what I think:

People who are college students, young professionals, _esp._ developers and
entrepreneurs often work late into the night, either because they're partying
or because they want to put that one problem to bed before they go themselves.

They often eat small snacks at night. Some wake up early, some wake up late,
but many rush to work and forget breakfast.

As a result, their bodies adjust to intermittent fasting, and they actually
have good calorie intake. Provided they don't eat junk food.

People who have been doing that since their early 20s are for the most part
not overweight.

That's my theory. You could also do intermittent fasting by skipping dinner,
but few night owls would do that. Instead, they eat dinner and some snacks at
night, it digests overnight and they aren't hungry in the morning.

------
paulpauper
tldr: methodological flaws and conflicts of interest undermine supposed
superiority of breakfast

------
atonse
I am just so unsettled by those broken yolks (I like my egg sunny side up),
that I couldn't read the rest of the article.

------
StavrosK
Also see this nice YouTube channel:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Syleh_6Aopw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Syleh_6Aopw)

------
UK-AL
I'm a victim of this myth. I'm just not hungry in the morning. Some people
love breakfast, and that's ok.

But don't barrage me with "it's the most important meal of the day" old wife
tales, when you don't understand my lack of hunger.

------
wmccullough
Why does everything have to be so polarized anymore?

~~~
tptacek
"Breakfast isn't magical" isn't a polarized position. The polar opposite of
"breakfast is magical" is "breakfast is evil", a position this article is at
pains not to take.

~~~
rco8786
I'm not sure that "evil" is the opposite of "magic"

~~~
usrusr
It's the perfect opposite if you look at both words the way you have to look
at them when they appear in writing about nutritional science. There, both
could only ever be used as deliberate exaggerations of the healthy/unhealthy
dichotomy, because neither Hogwarts nor James Bond supervillains have a place
there.

------
jcoffland
"As with many other nutritional pieces of advice, our belief in the power of
breakfast is based on misinterpreted research and biased studies."

This is the real piece of truth in this article.

------
beamatronic
Breakfast became "magical" to me when I started eating high-protein breakfasts
- basically eggs and bacon or sausage instead of cereal. The years I ate
cereal for breakfast, I was battling to stay awake until lunch time. I felt so
sleepy in class. Years later I moved to San Francisco and started eating eggs
almost every day in SoMa cafes. I could not believe the difference. I was wide
awake and had so much more energy.

~~~
magicbeanss
I recently re-introduced chicken into my diet after 12 years after being a
vegetarian. I started eating chicken breast for breakfast instead of the usual
toast and peanut butter, and the difference in my energy level is astounding.
I'm no longer carb-foggy, my digestion is much better, and I don't have to eat
again until well into the afternoon or evening.

------
DominikR
As somebody who does weight lifting I can say from my experience that I
performed much worse back then when I didn't take the time to eat a breakfast
before going to the fitness studio.

I actually even had to stop the training sometimes because I had to vomit.
(probably too low blood sugar)

During that time I made very slow progress.

Since I started to eat breakfast 2-3 hours before training I never had any
issues and I also gain more weight (muscles)

~~~
Jtsummers
> Since I started to eat breakfast 2-3 hours before training I never had any
> issues and I also gain more weight (muscles)

I think this is the important part. Breakfast (the morning meal) isn't the
critical factor, it's having the nutrients (proteins, sugars, etc.) in your
body when you need it. If you worked out in the evening, like me, you'd
probably find that a decent sized lunch + a small mid-afternoon snack would be
fine, breakfast optional.

------
rconti
Heh. I'm a breakfast eater now.

I used to not eat breakfast. I'd be _starving_ at 11:45am when it was time to
go out to lunch with my coworkers.

I decided to make some changes in my diet so I wasn't so hungry for lunch and
could make better choices. Started eating a healthy breakfast every morning.

I was _starving_ by 12:00pm.

So, for my anecdatel point, I think it has more to do with when your body
expects food than actual hunger.

------
talles
There's nothing magical about the way the author dismiss breakfast either. In
the end it's an article where the author says that "breakfast research is
flawed" and "I don't like breakfast".

I'm disappointed on how the author missed intermittent fasting which, even not
being scientific consensus, has many studies in favor of not breaking the
fast.

------
fs111
I can highly recommend "The diet myth" by Prof. Tim Spector, who does a good
job in explaining why there are so many myths about nutrition, food, digestion
etc:

[http://tim-spector.co.uk/](http://tim-spector.co.uk/)

~~~
streblo
FiveThirtyEight had an article about this recently:
[https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/you-cant-trust-what-
you...](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/you-cant-trust-what-you-read-
about-nutrition/)

------
darkstalker
I don't eat breakfast since a long time. I wake up at 11am-12pm and sleep at
3-4am. I just sleep through it. Does that mean that my lunch counts as a
breakfast?

------
emodendroket
Well, magical or not, I do not want to be hungry until lunch.

~~~
dionidium
The author doesn't get hungry before lunch. Maybe that seems weird to you, but
it doesn't to me. I don't get hungry until lunch, either.

~~~
emodendroket
Not really weird, no. I felt that way when I was in high school. But now my
habits have changed.

------
rabboRubble
If I don't eat breakfast, I get a headache after I eat lunch. So for me
breakfast is the equivalent of two Excedrin Migraine. Pure magic!

------
Gonzih
I'm also not hungry in the morning, but without breakfast I feel sleepy and
often get headache. So I'm not sure what author was trying to prove here.
Natural schedule and physiology is different from person to person.

~~~
detaro
> _So I 'm not sure what author was trying to prove here. Natural schedule and
> physiology is different from person to person._

That sounds exactly like the thing the author tries to demonstrate: There
isn't a clear-cut evidence that breakfast is important, or that it is bad.

------
Vanit
Time is an illusion. Breakfast time, doubly so.

------
mtw
Eating requires a lot of energy. Eating too much in the evening will for
example impact negatively your sleep.

Therefore, it is better to have a good breakfast and lunch so you can skip
dinner or have very light dinner (lean protein, veggies).

If you skip breakfast, you will have to eat dinner/late dinner. Goodbye good
night sleep.

~~~
witty_username
I sleep fine when I eat late, perhaps even better because my stomach is full
and that feels good.

------
will_brown
>I don’t eat breakfast...In fact, I’m rarely hungry until about lunchtime. So,
other than a morning cup of coffee, I don’t eat much before noon.

This is fairly amusing. First, coffee is a well known appetite suppressant.
Second, unless coffee is black it is probably far from zero calories, with
dairy and sugar maybe between 200-300 [empty] calories which would be in the
ball park of bacon and an egg.

Of course some starbucks drinks can easily be >600 calories so who knows, the
author could be drinking a coffee every morning that is closer to the caloric
equivalent of pancakes with syrup.

~~~
gutnor
> This is fairly amusing.

Or not. The effect of caffeine as an appetite suppressant is nowhere close to
letting you skip a meal (that's what we are talking about when saying
breakfast, not 5 corn flakes with a sip of milk). A lot of people take their
tea/coffee without sugar and the calorie content of a table spoon of milk is
negligible.

~~~
will_brown
>The effect of caffeine as an appetite suppressant is nowhere close to letting
you skip a meal

I don't know what you mean by saying caffeine doesn't let someone skip a meal,
no one is asking permission. Most can skip a meal with or without caffeine,
but the caffeine would only help curb hunger pains in those few hours before
lunch. I am not suggesting caffeine has some magical properties (though we all
know it does).

>A lot of people take their tea/coffee without sugar and the calorie content
of a table spoon of milk is negligible.

Ok lets use your example of how _a lot_ of people take their tea/coffee. A
Starbucks 16oz coffee with _no sugar_ and just 2% milk still has over 100
calories (120), just shy of a 12oz coke (140).

Clearly, whether or not that is negligible is sadly a matter of opinion more
than science, because you say it is and I say its not. Consider this though,
while sugar in coke is no doubt the larger health issue, you won't find to
many people who say the amount of empty calories from a coke every day over a
year is negligible (maybe just the Coke people themselves, but they will also
say the sugar isn't an issue). Nevertheless, what you define as negligible
calories is still more than an egg, still more than 2 pieces of bacon...and
none of the nutritional value.

~~~
epimetheus
That's all milk though, and be sure you look at the unsweetened data.

A 16oz, Ice Coffee (which is what I prefer so that's what I'm posting), is a
mere 5 calories[0] - drip coffee with no sweetener or splenda or some other
low/no calorie sweetener would be the same.

[0] - [http://www.starbucks.com/menu/drinks/iced-coffee/iced-
coffee...](http://www.starbucks.com/menu/drinks/iced-coffee/iced-
coffee?foodZone=9999#size=106510&sweetened=0)

~~~
will_brown
I acknowledged that in my original post:

>Second, unless coffee is black it is probably far from zero calories, with
dairy and sugar maybe between 200-300 [empty]

Notwithstanding the fact that you and I tend to drink coffee black, we likely
are in the minority. The fact that starbucks beverages are over 200 calories
at a ratio of 5:1 tend to support my assumptions about the demands of the
market (based on a sample of 51 starbucks beverages).

I think a lot of people took issue with my figures (200-300), but they are
starbucks figures not mine. Still my point remains, even if an average coffee
is 120 calories a number others have conceded who otherwise said I grossly
exaggerated, I wouldn't consider that skipping breakfast insofar as one can
have a very nutritious breakfast for that amount of calories (say 1 whole egg
and 2-3 egg whites; even bacon and an egg).

