Will You Gain Weight if You Skip Breakfast?

The food industry has promoted the claim that skipping breakfast leads to weight gain in order to sell more breakfast foods, like cereal. However, rigorous studies have not found evidence supporting this claim.

The idea that a good breakfast is good for your health goes back as far as the 1920s, when there began a nationwide campaign encouraging people to start their days with eggs and bacon. One of the financial backers of this campaign was Beech-Nut Packing Company, a retailer of pork products including bacon.

In the decades after the campaign, dozens of scientific studies reported people who eat breakfast tend to be thinner than those who skip the meal. The studies proved only an association, though, and not a cause-and-effect relationship. Despite this, food companies and health authorities asserted the studies proved that eating breakfast prevents weight gain.

However, studies that assigned people randomly to skip breakfast or eat breakfast have not reached the same conclusion. A recent study, published in February 2016, did not find a difference in health outcomes or weight change between people who did or did not eat breakfast for six weeks.

Eating or not eating breakfast alone won't impact your weight. Observational studies can be misleading. For example, a person who eats breakfast likely also follows other habits considered healthy. They tend to smoke and drink less, eat less sugar, and consume more fiber, as well as exercise regularly than those who skip breakfast.

Observational studies show only that individuals who eat breakfast tend to be leaner, but that is likely due to a multitude of factors, including lifestyle and genetics.