Eating breakfast encourages you to move more found the study
Breakfast is often said to be the most important meal of the day, yet many people are still shunning it in favour of fasting. But new research suggests that people who eat breakfast burn more calories and have tighter blood sugar control.
The University of Bath study examined the effect of daily breakfast compared to morning fasting on energy balance.
The research was conducted by splitting people into two groups, the ‘fasting’ group and a ‘breakfast’ group and studying them for six weeks. The ‘fasting’ group consumed no calories until 12pm each day, and the ‘breakfast’ group ate 700 calories before 11am, 350 of them within two hours of waking up.
Those who ate breakfast experienced little impact on snacking or portion sizes or a change in their resting metabolism, contrary to popular belief.
However, they were likely to expend more energy - around 442 calories - by being active, mainly in the morning after eating.
Dr James Betts, of the University of Bath's Department of Health, was the principal investigator in the study, published in leading nutrition journal American Journal of Clinical Nutrition today.
‘The main finding from our study is that people who eat breakfast burn more calories,’ Dr Betts told the Mail Online.
‘Most people would think this is because of reduced snacking and increased metabolic rate but actually this is due to moving around.
‘They were more active during the period that they had eaten breakfast. People moved around if they had been fed and there are many benefits to being active.’
As the day went on, those who ate breakfast experienced better blood sugar control compared to those who had fasted.
Throughout the study their daily diets did not change and those who consumed breakfast were not told what to eat according to Dr Betts.
Tagged in Diet Healthy eating Weight loss