Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. And, it’s true. It’s right there in the name – breaking the overnight fast. In today’s busy schedule, eating breakfast is that people are in a hurry and are running low on time, so the first thing they give the least priority is breakfast. But by skipping this important meal of the day, we invite many health issues. Therefore, understand these different unhealthy effects of skipping your breakfast and what they do to your body.
Eating breakfast regularly promotes more excellent health, including weight control, heart health, cognitive functions, cholesterol and diabetes management, etc. Skipping breakfast makes you miss out on essential nutrients and calories that your body requires to get you through your active morning hours.
Your body burns calories as energy. When it doesn’t get sufficient calories, it forces your body to mimic starvation mode, beginning to burn stored fat; this sounds like a good and useful thing if you want to lose weight. But if you regularly go too long without food, your body begins to break down muscle to use as energy, resulting in muscle loss, which is ‘unhealthy’ weight loss.
Unhealthy Effects Of Skipping Your Breakfast
1. Skipping Breakfast Slows Metabolism
Slow metabolism is one of the early side effects of skipping your breakfast. People who eat breakfast regularly have a higher level of resting metabolism. When you skip meals, your body slows its basal metabolic rate and stops working fast to conserve fuel to compensate for calorie restriction. Prolonged fasting will further reduce the body’s functioning to burn calories and impact the body’s fat amount and other essential nutrients.
2. Overeating Leads To Weight Gain
Skipping your breakfast makes the body deficient in calories and other essential nutrients; it can make you overeat throughout the day. When you are hungry, you often crave sugary, fatty foods. If you ignore your hunger in the morning hours, it will kick in eventually, and you will consume extra food, overeating and leading to excess weight gain. People who regularly eat breakfast tend to avoid overeating for the rest of the day.
People who skip breakfast tend to overeat at subsequent meals, consuming more calories during the most sedentary hours of the day without realizing that they take in more calories in one sitting than three planned meals. Studies reported that breakfast consumption improves overall diet quality and beneficial effect on appetite regulation, which would prevent overeating and subsequent obesity.
3. Increased Risk Of Type 2 Diabetes
Skipping the morning breakfast is linked with impaired glucose tolerance, which is further associated with the development of prediabetes and diabetes. When we fast for a long time and then eat a lot, there are irregular blood sugar spikes, which occur when we’re hungry. There is a strain on the body, which can lead to insulin resistance. A study found that those who avoid eating breakfast are at a 20 percent increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
4. Bad Moods And Low Energy Levels
There is a connection between food intake and the balance of neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine produced by the brain, regulating feelings and mood. Skipping morning breakfast elevates stress on the body, and stress affects dopamine and serotonin levels.
Eating breakfast has a more positive mood and supports happy feelings. Skipping breakfast will lead to a drop in blood sugar causes irritability, along with fatigue and headache that can further worsen your mood. Therefore, consume foods that elevate mood in your breakfast.
5. Skipping Breakfast Affects Cognitive Functioning
Skipping breakfast will not provide essential nutrients to the brain. As your brain runs on glucose, the drop in blood sugar from a prolonged fasting state can affect your cognitive function. It is vital to get the right amount of carbohydrates for breakfast to optimize cognitive focus and memory and better visual accuracy because carbohydrate breaks down into glucose. It has also been shown in many studies that school children do better in studies when they’ve had breakfast.
6. Skipping Breakfast Triggers Headaches
Skipping breakfast will cause a massive dip in your sugar levels as you are generally fasting throughout the night while you sleep. It triggers the release of hormones that can compensate for the low glucose levels, and your blood pressure is often raised at this point. It could trigger migraines and painful headaches.
7. Bad For Heart Health
Skipping breakfast is one reason for obesity, and it is directly related to systemic inflammation and atherosclerosis. Remaining in a fasting state for longer is stressful for the body and makes it work harder.
Metabolic changes are associated with an increased risk of the hardening and narrowing of arteries or atherosclerosis due to a build-up of plaque inside the arteries (fatty deposits, along with cholesterol and other forms of cellular waste build-up), according to the study paper published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
It has also been found in a study from Harvard University that men who skipped breakfast had a 27 percent greater risk of heart attack or heart disease.
8. Makes Your Breath Smell Bad
Bad breath is one of the side effects of skipping your breakfast. On fasting for a longer time, eating helps scrub your tongue of bacteria stimulated by saliva production, making your morning breath more tolerable. Stinky bacteria continue to stay in your mouth if you keep on skipping your breakfast.
How Should Your Breakfast Be?
Food habits can be according to an individual’s cultural, social, and psychological daily life routines. Including dietary protein in breakfast suppresses appetite and provides satiety between meals.
Eating a healthy breakfast with an adequate amount of combination of high protein and carbohydrates can help manage your appetite throughout the day. People who eat a high-protein breakfast tend to eat fewer calories overall during the day compared to people who eat only a high-carbohydrate breakfast.
Feeling satisfied after a healthy breakfast can put you on the right track. Avoid worse food choices when you are hungry. Don’t go for sugary pastries or simple carbs—choose healthy proteins like eggs, pulses, curd, and healthy fats like dry fruits, oilseeds, etc., with a combination of complex carbs like whole grains, bananas.
But, sometimes, if you do not feel like eating or truly not hungry in the morning, listen to your body and try eating something light, such as a piece of fruit or no-sugar-added yogurt. You can always take the help of your nutritionist to plan a healthy breakfast for you.
Stay Healthy! Stay Happy!
Read Also: 9 Protein-rich Breakfast Recipes That Are Delicious
