Skipping breakfast hampers brainwork

Many students and company workers often skip breakfast and have a cup of coffee instead. They say that they don`t eat breakfast because it makes their stomachs feel heavy. However, this heaviness is actually a result of skipping breakfast. When you eat breakfast after a long time of not doing so, it gives you these uneasy feelings and leads you to avoid having a morning meal.

I would say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. The first reason is that skipping breakfast accelerates the accumulation of fatigue in your body. The energy that you need for body metabolism and activities in the morning mainly comes from the decomposition of fat. In the process, a lot of fatigue-causing materials, including lactic acid, are created. If you don’t supply enough nutrition to your body by eating breakfast, you will feel tired and your physical and mental vitality will fall.

Second, you need to provide glucose to your brain, which uses the substance as an energy source. Breakfast supplies glucose necessary for mental activity in the morning. Skipping breakfast requires the additional process of decomposing fat and turning it into glucose. So it would be more efficient for you to have sugar and let it be used as an energy source for your brain.

Third, skipping breakfast often leads you to overeat at lunch and can cause various problems such as digestive trouble, obesity and diabetes. As a result, your immunity will deteriorate. Besides, the mental and physical stress coming from skipping breakfast often becomes the cause of stomachaches.

It is ideal that you get 33 percent of all energy for the day from breakfast, 33 from lunch and 33 from dinner. It is good for your health to have breakfast, which includes proper amounts of rice, bread, fat, protein and vegetables. If this is difficult, you should have porridge, bread, cereal or fruit. That`s not ideal but is much better than not eating at all.

Kim Chul-Hwan, Professor of family medicine at Inje University Paik Hospital in Seoul