“No time!” “Not hungry this early in the morning!” “Nobody eats breakfast!”
Sound familiar?

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Let’s look at why.

• The young person’s “job” in life is to go to school and to learn. The brain needs nourishment after the long night’s fast in order to become alert and alive, to be smart and to function at its best. It is important that we break our fast with breakfast.
• People who eat early in the day consume 40% fewer calories throughout the day.
• A person needs at least three meals per day in order to keep his or her metabolism functioning optimally, burning fat and creating energy.
• Children who restrict food and who diet in their early years are at a greater risk for becoming obese adults.

What to do:

Figure out why you are missing breakfast.

1. Is it because there are no breakfast foods in your house?
   * Talk to your parents about making sure there is cereal and milk, eggs, cheeses, bread, fruit, and juices in the house.
   
   
2. Are you late for school?
   * Wake up 10 minutes earlier. That’s all it takes.
   
   
3. Is breakfast simply not “done” in your house?
   * Be the initiator. Invite your family to sit down with you. You’ll see how nice it is to share a few moments together before starting your day. Ask them to buy your favorite jam, your favorite kind of peanut butter, to help you make an egg. They need to know that healthy eating is important to you.
   
   
4. Are you not hungry?
   * You’d be surprised how ready your body will be to accept nourishment if you take the initiative to put food into it. Once your body becomes used to eating three meals a day and starting the digestive process first thing in the morning, it will begin to fall into line and create hunger at appropriate times.
   
   
5. Be aware that if you are running out the door in the morning without breakfast, the odds are that you are also leaving for school without a sack lunch in your book-bag.
   * Is that okay with you? What will you do for lunch? Do you find that when you have no food in your belly till lunchtime, you tend to want to gorge yourself at lunch? Are you afraid that by that time your hunger will be so great that if you let yourself eat one bite, you will gorge yourself and become obese?
   
   
6. Are you trying to lose weight?
   * Did you know that the worst way to lose weight is to diet? That 95% of dieters regain their weight back and more within 5 years? That weight is lost in muscle and water and that weight is regained in fat?

Start out by making small changes. Eat breakfast once a week, and then twice and gradually become acclimated to do for your body what it needs in order to work best for you.