New Study Says Breakfast, Cereal Helps Teenage Girls Stay Slim"
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andGirls who regularly ate breakfast, particularly one that includes cereal, were slimmer than those who skipped the morning meal, according to a study that tracked nearly 2,400 girls for 10 years.
Girls who ate breakfast of any type had a lower average body mass index, a common obesity gauge, than those who said they didn't. The index was even lower for girls who said they ate cereal for breakfast, according to findings of the study conducted by the Maryland Medical Research Institute. The study received funding from the National Institutes of Health and cereal-maker General Mills.
"Not eating breakfast is the worst thing you can do, that's really the take-home message for teenage girls," said study author Bruce Barton, the Maryland institute's president and CEO.
What interests me more than the cereal is the importance of any breakfast (it's kind of a given that a study funded by general mills is going to be pro-cereal):John Kirwan, a professor of medicine at Case Western Reserve
University's Schwartz Center for Nutrition and Metabolism, said the
findings may be "more reflective of overall eating habits and quality
of food consumed."
"Those who eat breakfast on a regular basis are more likely to have a
structured eating plan throughout the day and consequently are less
likely to snack between meals and consume empty calories," said Kirwan,
who has studied the effect of breakfast consumption on exercise
performance and was not involved in the study.
From another article about the same study:
So don't forget, 3 is the minimum as well as the maximum!"Skipping breakfast really came out [as a predictor] of weight gain," Barton said. "I don't know if anyone realized the magnitude of breakfast skipping. By age 19 almost 45 percent were skipping breakfast."
Reinhard