Rise and shine:

It used to be considered the most important meal of the day. Then it wasn’t. We asked senior scientist and dietician at CSIRO Dr Jane Bowen, a co-author of the new CSIRO Women’s Health & Nutrition Guide, to weigh in on our first meal of the day.

breakfast under the spotlight

No other meal has ever been under as much pressure to deliver as breakfast. Some of the following may sound familiar: Breakfast is the most important meal of the day … it stops you over-eating later. You may have heard this too: Skipping it reduces your resting metabolic rate and leads to weight gain. In the past few years many studies have shattered these myths. In fact, among the most compelling was a review published in The BMJ (British Medical Journal) suggesting all meals are, in fact, equal. Confirming what commonsense may have already told you: a croissant first thing is the same as one at 3pm. “There’s no running away from the importance of nutritious foods,” says Dr Jane Bowen. And while “one-size-fits-all” diet guidelines are a thing of the past, breakfast lovers need not dismay. “If eating breakfast suits you, keep doing that – we just don’t want people to eat when they’re not hungry because they think they should,” says Dr Bowen, noting that breakfast is one of the easiest meals to address when you want to create healthier habits, “because most people are more motivated in the morning”. To follow, Dr Bowen answers more pertinent breakfast questions.

Q: How did breakfast become the most important meal?

A: People have always eaten food at the beginning of the day, but breakfast gained in status as the meal to never miss in the 1900s when there was a lot of social and industrial change. It was a time when people migrated from rural life into urban settings, and we also saw women entering the paid workforce and industrialised changes to food production. All of which led to intense marketing around new types of foods, like processed cereals.

Q: Does breakfast jump-start our metabolism?

A: Metabolism is a term used to describe how efficiently your body uses and burns energy. And we know that a lot of factors influence it: our

genes, hormone levels, the amount of muscle we have in our body as well as the nutrients in the food we eat. But when it comes to the timing of your meals, what science now tells us is that having a regular routine is more important than when you eat. It is this routine that sets your body’s regular metabolic rate. And when your body never knows when the next meal is coming, as is the case with shift workers, that’s when research shows health-related issues arise.

Q: What if I’m never hungry until later in the day?

A: Skip breakfast. In our CSIRO weight-loss clinic, we hear time and again from women who were made to eat when they weren’t hungry or told to keep eating once they’re full, which overrides your appetite signals and over time, prevents us from hearing them at all. This is challenging for parents who want children who aren’t hungry in the morning to eat before school. You could compromise and give them a banana or little tub of yoghurt, or pack more food for them at lunchtime. Listening to your body’s hunger cues is really important.

Q: How would you define a healthy breakfast?

A: There’s no one breakfast you should eat, but consider the nutritious benefits of the foods you choose. For instance, wholegrain foods give you slow-release energy that keeps you going until lunchtime; protein foods like eggs or baked beans suppress hunger hormones; and of course fruit and vegetables have

nutrients and fibre, which is filling and also keeps you regular.

Q: What do we know about the link between breakfast and focus?

A: Cognition is such an exciting area of nutrition research at the moment. We know there is a link between what we eat and how we feel. One of the things we’ve seen in quite a few studies is that low glycaemic index (GI) foods help boost short-term focus when compared to high-GI foods. For breakfast, that means making easy swaps like porridge or wholegrain bread instead of refined-sugar breakfast cereal could make all the difference.

Q: What is the relationship between weight loss and breakfast?

A: Skipping breakfast and not eating until lunchtime is a common strategy that lots of people have heard about. The research shows that fasting can be just as effective as other weightloss methods but importantly it’s not better, it’s just another strategy that might work for you.

Q: What do you eat for breakfast?

A: I’m a busy, working mother, and right now I have a smoothie every morning. My favourite combination is fruit, milk, banana, peanut butter and cinnamon. The routine makes shopping and preparing food easier. I used to wake up starving and need a much larger meal to feel satisfied, but my appetite is changing. I think just because we’ve done one thing for a long time doesn’t mean it’s going to keep suiting us. We have to be able to listen to our bodies and do what feels good.

“Listening to your body’s hunger cues is really important.”

– Dr Jane Bowen