Breakfast: A dogma falls?

Breakfast. Most of us have grown up with one sentence chiseled into our heads above the kitchen:

“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”

Because it is manifested in classrooms, through discussions with parents and via health guides and, last but not least, supposedly via studies, we force more or rather less “healthy” food into our bodies early in the morning, and especially into our children’s bodies, just to be fit for the day, because getting up early already costs enough energy.

Spoiler: What if we follow a social dogma that is neither biologically sound nor scientifically proven, and that forces millions of children and adolescents against their inner rhythm every day, with far-reaching consequences?

I can see how the first people’s hats are already slipping slightly vertically, but … “let’s break it down”, as the AI often puts it.

The study situation: Breakfast is good - or ... ?

Incidentally, the dogma mentioned at the beginning does not originate from science at all, but from the industry of the early post-war years. “Cornflakes” and “ham and egg” were positioned on the market accordingly by PR pioneer Edward Bernays ((recommendation: ARTE documentary“The science of opinion making” on Edward Bernays)), flanked by manipulated studies and recommendations from doctors. Science followed marketing and not the other way around.

Nevertheless, even today numerous studies seem to come to a clear conclusion:

Children who eat breakfast perform better in cognitive tests.
School grades are better on average for breakfast eaters.
Skipping breakfast correlates with obesity and unhealthy eating habits.

So at first glance: breakfast = healthy. Doing without = risky , although the scientific consensus today is that cornflakes, ham and eggs in the morning are certainly no longer on the mandatory list of recommendations.

However, if you take a closer look at the study situation, question marks arise, because the conclusion “breakfast = must-have” is based on shaky foundations.

In my opinion, and I would like to be corrected, it is based on an error in reasoning that is reflected in an incorrect study design. An error of reasoning that many of these studies have in common – an error that can only be recognized if you ask yourself what is actually being compared.

What the studies do not compare

The central point is as simple as it is controversial:

Most studies do not make comparisons:

“Breakfast at 7:00 a.m.” versus
“first structured meal at 10:00 am” (i.e. later, but still 3 meals)

Instead, it is compared:

Breakfast (classic early in the morning)
No breakfast (with unclear later eating behavior, e.g. only 2 meals)

In other words:
The reduction from three to two meals a day is examined, but not the effect of a delayed first meal with the same total food volume.

Or to put it even more simply: studies do not show a late breakfast instead of breakfast.

That is a fundamental difference. It is clear that the pupils then compensate for this lack with sweets, which are not classified as a “meal” but as snacks and therefore as a negative consequence of not having breakfast.

Biologically speaking: Breakfast ≠ "first meal"

Conventional medicine and nutritional research talk in general terms about “breakfast” – and usually mean a meal early in the morning, often between 6:30 and 8:00 a.m., especially when we are talking about schoolchildren.
This ignores a key variable: the chronotype .

Early risers (larks)

Cortisol peaks early in the morning
High activity directly after getting up
Hunger in the morning is natural

Late types (owls)

Biologically only “awake” from 9-10 am
Digestion not yet active
Eating early in the morning (e.g. after an alarm clock) leads to sluggishness, nausea or glucose spikes.

The point is that most pupils become 1-2.5 hours later in the course of puberty until adolescence (approx. 20 years), which means that their biological sleep window shifts by this time into the morning. This has less effect on extremely early types of children than on normal or late types. And yet the system forces all children – regardless of whether they are larks or owls – to have the same school and therefore meal times, such as the first meal of the day. Biological madness.

But what does the data tell us in detail?

Studies, e.g. based on the US NHANES data, show:

Children who skip breakfast consume fewer calories per day on average
The total energy intake is reduced, but often not replaced by structured meals – but by snacks
Lower nutritional quality: less fiber, proteins, vitamins – more sugar and fat
Many children who “don’t eat breakfast” effectively only get two proper meals a day instead of 3.

But here’s the catch:
These studies generally do not make comparisons:

“What effect does a first meal at 10:00 a.m. (instead of 7:00 a.m.) have on daily performance and health – with an otherwise identical diet?”

However, such a study would be necessary to isolate the effect of the time of day – and thus the internal clock. However, most designs completely ignore this variable. They only compare 3 meals (i.e. including breakfast) with breakfast skippers with only 2 meals (i.e. without breakfast).

Consequence: wrong conclusions, bad recommendations?

When studies show that “children who don’t eat breakfast perform worse”, this often becomes a blanket recommendation:

“So all children have to have breakfast – preferably as soon as they get up.”

What is being concealed:

Many children (especially late types) still have no appetite in the morning
Eating too early can lead to nausea, a drop in performance or indigestion
The body is not yet hormonally ready for calorie utilization – the result: blood sugar fluctuations, cravings, sluggishness

The conclusion of the studies is simply: “Not eating breakfast is bad.”

So it’s just thrown in.

But the correct conclusion should be:

“A structured, high-quality first meal is important – but not necessarily in the early morning.”

So it’s not about skipping breakfast, but about eating a first meal at the time of day when the body can process it metabolically in the best possible way.

In this area, however, there tends to be radio silence in terms of studies!

What does this mean for parents, schools and health policy?

It is high time to break with the blanket recommendation “breakfast for everyone – and early”.

Instead, we need:

Flexibility when starting school
→ Late risers should not have to get up at 6:30 and eat at 7:00. If you’re not hungry, don’t force yourself to eat, but develop a healthy understanding of your biological rhythm.
Allow individual meal times
→ Canteens and breakfast offers not only “early”, but also at 9:30/10:00, for example.
Education instead of dogma
→ Parents should understand that “not eating breakfast” is not necessarily bad – if the first meal is conscious and of high quality. Think of late breakfast as an alternative to breakfast and communicate “first meal of the day”.
Chronotype-appropriate meal times in BGM
→ In the adult world, too, we need to move away from fixed meal times and towards individually tailored timing.

The late breakfast?

We no longer teach the term “breakfast” in the ChronoCoach® training program.
Why?

Because it cements a temporally standardized eating pattern that is biologically arbitrary.

Our alternative:

“For late-night types, breakfast is a late breakfast.”

Or even clearer:
We deliberately only talk about the “first meal of the day” – and not breakfast.

This is not a semantic gimmick, but extremely important wording to manifest the aspect of chronotypes.

Conclusion

I think we can all agree on one thing: children need energy, structure and good nutrients to learn, develop and stay healthy. And we adults need energy to work and stay healthy

But that doesn’t mean that this energy has to be absorbed at 7:00 in the morning.

On the contrary:
If we allow children – and adults too – to live according to their inner rhythm, then not only their well-being increases, but also their performance.

And that is precisely why it is time to question the dogma – and replace it with individual, biologically based solutions.

Above all, this should be brought into the focus of science (nutrition or, better still, chronobiology) through an appropriately open study design, as described above.

BUT! I don’t know everything. If there are any studies that show a corresponding setting, I would be extremely grateful for a reference.

Goodbye breakfast, welcome first meal of the day?

Ok … “First meal of the day” sounds cumbersome, does anyone have an idea with more sexiness? If you take trendy abbreviations, you get “EMAT“. I’m sure if you teach children “EMAT” from the start, “breakfast” will be a thing of the past in a generation. But … there are other suggestions, and “EMAT” also stands for “electromagnetic acoustic transducer” … ;-).

How do you feel about breakfast?
Have you yourself experienced how “early eating” has harmed you or your children?
Should we finally think more rhythmically in schools and daycare centers?

Because health does not begin with a full stomach – but with an understood rhythm.

Quellen

Alexa Hoyland, Louise Dye and Clare L. Lawton, “Nutrition Research Reviews” , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , December 2009 , pp. 220 – 243 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954422409990175

Adolphus K, Lawton CL, Dye L. The effects of breakfast on behavior and academic performance in children and adolescents. Front Hum Neurosci. 2013 Aug 8;7:425. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00425. PMID: 23964220; PMCID: PMC3737458.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23964220/

Wang K, Niu Y, Lu Z, Duo B, Effah CY, Guan L. The effect of breakfast on childhood obesity: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Front Nutr. 2023 Sep 6;10:1222536. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2023.1222536. PMID: 37736138; PMCID: PMC10510410.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37736138/

Kwon A, Kim S, Choi Y, Kim HY, Lee M, Lee M, Lee HI, Song K, Suh J, Chae HW, Kim HS. Effects of Early Wake-Up Time on Obesity in Adolescents. Child Obes. 2024 Apr;20(3):188-197. doi: 10.1089/chi.2023.0016. Epub 2023 May 11. PMID: 37166826; PMCID: PMC10979690.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37166826/

Asao, K.; Marekani, A.S.; VanCleave, J.; Rothberg, A.E. Leptin Level and Skipping Breakfast: The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey III (NHANES III). Nutrients 2016, 8, 115. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu8030115