A reprisal from the breakfast club

“Hypothetical model of how BRR [biased research reporting] and RLPV [research lacking probative value] may be involved in perpetuation presumptions” [or, an accurate representation of David’s thinking process]. Source: Brown, Bohan Brown, Allison. AJCN. 2013.

Breakfast is still the most important meal of the day. Excuse me if I’m a little biased. Apparently, I’m not alone. I like to eat breakfast. I’ve long told everyone they should eat breakfast. And I make sure my children eat breakfast every day, often cooking up their favorite sorts of breakfast meals on the weekends.

Breakfast is a great time to eat the types of foods (like yogurt and muesli, granola, cereal, or egg omelets) that can provide valuable nutrients like protein, calcium, iron, and a range of vitamins. For nutritionists, that’s a big deal. These nutrients are especially important in children and teens, who should be eating breakfast daily to better concentrate in school and who might not get these nutrients in other meals.

Besides, it’s useful to remind that eating breakfast can help you avoid weight gain by satisfying your appetite and keeping you from bingeing on high-sugar, high-fat foods later in the day. That’s a well-known fact. Everyone knows that, right?

So on that morning last September when well-respected researchers Andrew Brown, Michelle Bohan Brown, and David Allison of the University of Alabama at Birmingham dared to question breakfast’s sanctity in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (1), I just figured I’d ignore it. “Discarded information,” that’s all it was.