Metabolic Syndrome And The Lack Of A Breakfast For Our Youth

Metabolic Syndrome And The Lack Of A Breakfast For Our Youth

When we were younger we felt like we could conquer the world. As a child, our parents forced us to eat three meals a day, if not more, with high nutrition. It was stressed that breakfast was the most important meal of the day.

As we got older, began to go to school, perhaps both parents were working, the control and management of our eating habits were sometimes left to chance, or to a drummed in memory of what we did as an infant. A recent study has shown that skipping or missing breakfast may lead to the onset of metabolic syndrome in your later years, especially as you enter middle age.

Metabolic syndrome is a grouping of connected disease leading to an umbrella diagnosis. There are a list of common risk factors which make up the syndrome such as high blood pressure, high blood sugar levels, high triglycerides, and obesity. These factors are also associated with heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. It was the development of these risk factors and subsequent diagnosis of metabolic syndrome that were the focus of a recent study published in the Journal Public Health Nutrition.

The study was conducted at Umea University in Sweden. A group of Swedish schoolchildren were asked a series of questions concerning their eating habits at breakfast. After 27 years, the group of children, now adults were tested for a variety of risk factors, including the ones listed above. The study found that children who skipped or missed breakfast, or ate a very insubstantial meal, were 68% more likely to develop metabolic syndrome, or its resulting risk factors, than children who ate a more substantial breakfast. Almost 890 teenagers participated in the study. They were first questioned about their eating habits when they were 16 years of age, and subsequently tested when they were 43 years old. All socioeconomic and lifestyle choices were factored into the study prior to determining the results.

According to one of the study researchers, Maria Weinberg said in a statement, “Further studies are required for us to be able to understand the mechanisms involved in the connection between poor breakfast and metabolic syndrome , but our results and those of several previous studies suggest that a poor breakfast can have a negative effect on blood sugar regulation,”

It has been argued that without eating a substantial breakfast you could develop health issues. Without breakfast, children will develop a craving for higher calorie foods later during the day. This will lead to eating high sugar products which ultimately may develop into the many risk factors leading to this disease. Easting a hearty breakfast can increase energy levels, reduce stress, and reduce stroke and heart disease factors.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. We should all make the time to eat a substantial breakfast every day. There are many reasons why we choose not to such as running late, no time, get something later, only need my coffee and nothing else. All of these reasons are superficial. As parents, it is imperative that we make our children understand the lasting and long term effects of failing to take time to eat the morning meal. A healthy adulthood is worth a good morning breakfast alas a younger child.

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