Does eating breakfast make kids gain weight?

One of the biggest dieting myths is that eating breakfast will make kids gain weight. No evidence supports this belief. In fact, the opposite is true. Eating the morning meal can actually help both kids and adults maintain a healthy weight. Kids who eat breakfast tend to be thinner and have lower body mass indexes (BMI) than their breakfast-skipping counterparts. How can this be? There are a few possible explanations. First, eating breakfast seems to jump-start the body’s calorie-burning system (metabolism) after a long night’s sleep (hours in which no calories are consumed). Second, breakfast helps curb kids’ appetites. Kids who eat breakfast are less likely to overeat and are more likely to exercise later in the day. In contrast, kids who skip breakfast usually make up for the calories -- and then some -- before the day’s end and have less energy for physical activity.

No, eating breakfast does not cause kids to gain weight. In fact, eating breakfast for people of all ages is associated with a lower body weight. When a kid doesn’t eat breakfast his or her risk of being overweight increases. It’s because when a kids doesn’t eat breakfast his/her body goes into survival mode (also called starvation mode) after a few hours. This is the body’s way of conserving energy. Problem happens when the kid does eat, most kids (this process applies to adults as well) they eat more than if they had breakfast. It is not the breakfast that causes weight gain but the overeating that often happens when one doesn’t eat breakfast.