Irregular Breakfast Eating is Unhealthy

Many college students spend their morning like this: after their alarm clocks wake them up, they always struggle for ten or twenty minutes; they rub their tired and sleepy eyes, getting up out of their bed. Because every second counts, some students rush out of their dormitory without breakfast. The other students, who remind themselves to eat “breakfast”, always open their empty refrigerator and then close it, getting into the crowd of college.The study of Krisha Thiagaraja and Mohammad R.Torabi indicate that about 37.2% of young people between 19 and 29 years of age seldom eat breakfast. Most of them said the main reasons for not eating breakfast was they do not have enough time (64%) and the other said they did not feel hungry in the morning (30.3%) (9). Do you remember how long you have not eaten breakfast so far?

It is widely accepted that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, especially during growth. Regular breakfast eating is a crucial indicator to a healthy lifestyle and health physical and mental status, because it provides people the daily supply of nutrients. Irregular breakfast eating or always skipping breakfast is always associated with being overweight, the low frequency of health promoting behavior, and even high possibility of cardiometabolic risk in a longitudinal study. Thus, whether students or office workers, to get up early every day for 15 minutes and to enjoy a good breakfast should be one of the “required courses” in the daily life. To encourage students and staff eating breakfast regularly should be considered as a significant health promotion strategy in university campus.

In their study, irregular breakfast eating and health status among adolescents in Taiwan, Rea-Jeng, Edward K Wang, Yeu-Sheng Hsieh and Mei-Yen Chen investigate 1609 adolescents and get a conclusion that irregular breakfast eating is connected to being overweight. Among the total participant students, “28.8% were overweight and nearly one quarter (23.6%) reported eating breakfast irregularly during schooldays” (7). Skipping breakfast is frequent for students during schooldays and they often eat high calorie and unhealthy snacks during break. Comparing the overweight rate between students who have regular breakfast eating and those who have irregular breakfast eating (OR for IRBE VS. RBE=1.51), there finding shows that students with regular breakfast eating had a lower risk of overweight due to the less snacks eating between meals.

Many studies show that skipping breakfast is widespread happening among college students, which is also an indicator for health promoting behavior. Krisha Thiagarajah and Mohammad R. Torabi did a study about the Irregular Breakfast Eating and Associated Health Behaviors in 2009. They investigated 1,257 college students in a Midwestern university in the U.S.A, and found nearly one-fifth of them stated that they never eating breakfast (4). Comparing to regular breakfast eaters, their logical analysis indicate that students who always skip breakfast are more likely to sleep 5.5 hours or less. “Sleep deprivation would have caused them to be tired the net morning and, thus, lead to skipping breakfast” (5). Not only that, breakfast skippers are less likely to work out in contrast to those non-skippers, since eating breakfast can improve the energy intake to do extra physical activities. Moreover, students who always skip breakfast have a high consumption of soda and other sugared beverages. Similar to some breakfast skippers will nibble snakes between meals, some others have to compensate their calories from the non-nutritive beverages (9). Eating breakfast, thus, is associated with health behavior.

            If the potential possibility of obesity and the short-term unhealthy lifestyle cannot catch your attention due to your academic pressure, a longitudinal study about the relationship between cardiometabolic risk and skipping breakfast have to get your attention. Kylie J Smith, Seana L Gall, Sarah A McNaughton, Leigh Blizzard, Terence Dwyer, and Alison J Venn conclude that to promote breakfast eating is an important public health message on account of the cardiometabolic health (1). They found that people who skipped breakfast in adulthood but not in childhood are similar to those who skipped breakfast at both time. For instance, they all have higher fasting insulin and LDL cholesterol concentrations, which are contributors to detrimental effects on cardiometabolic health, than non-breakfast skippers. There study shows that eating breakfast is a persistent work in your daily life. The cardiometabolic rick will directly influence your diet quality in the future.

            Among the three studies, the key solution to promote college students to eat breakfast is to propose a healthy lifestyle among youth. Some scholars believe that college has the main duty to influence students and families’ attitudes regarding healthy breakfast and exercise. They could decrease breakfast skippers through provide quick and nutrient food. However, the body is one’s own. Don’t forget you are the lead of yourself. A good suggestion or always the first food you should eat for breakfast is a cup of cereal with skim milk. For starters of breakfast eating, a cup of cereal is quick, always less than five minutes to prepare, and healthy, which has fiber to lower cholesterol. For girls who always worry about their weight, skim milk also help you to lose weight.

            Overall, to develop a habit usually takes 21 days. Thus, why not try to set your alarm clock and to get up early for 15 minutes from today in order to enjoy a nutrient breakfast? Eating breakfast is a good beginning to develop a healthy lifestyle because paying attention to your health is always the best investment in the youth time.

  

Work Cited

Yang, Rea-Jeng, Edward K Wang, Yue-Sheng Hsieh, and Mei-Yen Chen. “Irregular

breakfast eating and health status among adolescens in Taiwan.” BMC Public

Health (Dec.2006): 6:295. Print.

Thiagarajah, Krisha, and Mohammad R. Torabi. “Irregular Breakfast Eating and

Associated Health Behaviors: A Pilot Study Among College Students.” The

Health Educator (Spring.2009): vol.41, No.1. Print.

Smith, Kylie J, Seana L Gall, Sarah A McNaughton, Leigh Blizzard, Terence Dwyer,

and Alison J Venn. “Skipping breakfast: longitudinal associations with

cardiometabolic risk factors in the Childhood Determinants of Adult Health

Study.” AJCN (Oct.2010). Print.