Argument on the hot search! Skipping breakfast VS skipping dinner, which one has a greater impact on the body?

In the fast-paced modern life, many people often choose to skip a meal due to time constraints or other reasons. Among them, skipping breakfast and skipping dinner are two common phenomena. Recently, the topic #Is skipping breakfast more harmful than skipping dinner # became a hot search on Weibo, sparking heated discussions among netizens.

So, what kind of impact will such eating habits have on the body? Skipping breakfast VS skipping dinner, which one has a greater impact on the body?

Image source: Weibo screenshot

What's wrong with skipping breakfast?

As the saying goes: A day's plan begins in the morning. So we all attach great importance to breakfast. However, as the pace of life continues to accelerate, more and more people often miss breakfast, let alone eat a good breakfast.

As the first meal of the day, breakfast is crucial to dietary nutrition intake, health status and work or study efficiency. Eating breakfast every day is also a healthy lifestyle advocated by the World Health Organization (WHO). Breakfast is the longest time between the previous meal and consumes a lot of energy. Skipping breakfast may lead to unbalanced nutrition and hunger, which will reduce the excitability of the brain, slow reaction and lack of concentration, affecting work and study efficiency.

Developing a habit of eating breakfast regularly is good for your health. Many studies have found that eating breakfast regularly is negatively correlated with obesity and cardiovascular disease. my country's dietary guidelines also point out that a reasonable diet can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, and eating breakfast regularly is also part of a reasonable diet, so it is very important.

However, many people do not eat a good breakfast. The "Survey Report on Breakfast Diet in China" shows that 35% of Chinese people cannot eat breakfast every day; even if they can eat breakfast, many people do not eat it healthily. 55% of people have less than 3 kinds of breakfast food every day, and 42% of people finish it in 10 minutes, making it difficult to achieve a balanced diet.

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What's wrong with skipping dinner?

Among the three meals a day, we usually think that dinner is the least important.

In fact, if you really skip dinner, it will also harm your body. The most direct and obvious one is hunger, which will lead to malnutrition .

After all, the energy and nutrition our human body needs every day are similar. If we skip a certain meal and don’t eat more at other times, it will definitely not be enough, and it will slowly be consumed. Hunger will increase dramatically, affecting the quality of sleep, making it difficult to fall asleep or having a shallow sleep.

If you simply skip dinner and keep your other lifestyle habits unchanged, you will suffer from malnutrition problems in the long run. For example, you may become listless, physically weak, depressed, and have a dull complexion... These are all manifestations of malnutrition.

For some people with special diseases, such as patients with gastrointestinal ulcers, or people working in special periods of time (such as working in three shifts or night shifts), skipping dinner will have a greater impact on them.

Therefore, from a health perspective, you should try to arrange your three meals a day regularly, and dinner should not be missed.

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Which is more important, breakfast or dinner?

The field of "chrononutrition" explores this question.

Chrononutrology is a new research field in recent years. It studies how factors such as food intake time, eating patterns, and eating frequency affect the body's metabolism, energy balance, and health. In recent years, it has been found that the time of eating breakfast and dinner will have a certain impact on health.

Studies have found that skipping breakfast is associated with an increased risk of circulatory system diseases and all-cause mortality in men, and an increased risk of all-cause mortality in women; habitual skipping breakfast is associated with an increased risk of gastrointestinal cancer, including esophageal cancer, gastric cancer, colorectal cancer, liver cancer, gallbladder cancer, and extrahepatic bile duct cancer; skipping breakfast increases the risk of cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality.

Dinner is also important. For example, studies have found that eating dinner after 9 p.m. increases the risk of cancer. Eating dinner before 9 p.m. every night can reduce the risk of cancer by about 25%. At the same time, compared with going to bed immediately after a meal, waiting 2 hours or more after a meal before going to bed reduces the risk of breast cancer and prostate cancer by 20%. Eating only one meal a day is associated with a higher risk of death, and skipping lunch or dinner in particular increases the risk of cardiovascular disease.

These studies are still underway and need further verification. However, judging from the current voices in the nutrition community, it is generally believed that regular diet is more beneficial to health.

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans report that Americans who eat three meals a day have a higher quality diet relative to those who eat two meals a day, attributed to relatively greater intakes of vegetables, leafy greens, fruits, whole grains, and dairy products.

The American Heart Association (AHA) summarized the effects of specific dietary patterns on cardiometabolic health markers, including obesity, blood lipid levels, insulin resistance, and blood pressure. The results showed that skipping breakfast, intermittent fasting, meal frequency (number of meals per day), and meal time are dietary patterns that affect cardiometabolic health markers. Irregular dietary patterns are not conducive to maintaining good cardiometabolic health.

Therefore, it is recommended that people should consciously develop a good eating pattern, whether it is breakfast or dinner, and develop the habit of eating three meals regularly.

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Finally, as someone working in the field of food and nutrition, I would like to give you some advice:

1. Give yourself some time: Whether it is breakfast or dinner, please leave some time for yourself. Even if you just eat a bowl of porridge and an egg, or a piece of bread and a glass of milk, it can provide your body with the energy and nutrition it needs.

2. Gradually improve nutrition level: Many people are indeed busy and do not have much time to prepare breakfast or dinner, but you can start slowly and try to diversify your food within your ability to promote balanced nutrition. The dietary guidelines recommend that we eat 12 kinds of food every day and 25 kinds of food every week. Therefore, the types of food every day should not be too few. It is recommended to try to have vegetables, fruits, staple foods and high-quality proteins such as meat, not just fish and meat.

3. Pay attention to your body's feelings: When you feel hungry or uncomfortable, don't ignore it. This is your body's signal to you that you need to replenish energy and nutrition. Please respect your body's feelings and provide it with the food it needs in a timely manner.

4. Maintain a positive attitude: Changing eating habits is not something that can be achieved overnight. It takes time and persistence. In this process, please maintain a positive attitude and patience, and believe that your efforts will bring you good health and a better life.

References

[1] Flanagan A, Bechtold DA, Pot GK, Johnston JD. Chrono-nutrition: From molecular and neuronal mechanisms to human epidemiology and timed feeding patterns. J Neurochem. 2021 Apr;157(1):53-72. doi: 10.1111/jnc.15246. Epub 2020 Dec 10. PMID: 33222161.

[2] Chrononutrition: Meal timing is crucial to your health | NHLBI, National Institutes of Health (nih.gov)

[3] Yokoyama Y, Onishi K, Hosoda T, Amano H, Otani S, Kurozawa Y, Tamakoshi A. Skipping Breakfast and Risk of Mortality from Cancer, Circulatory Diseases and All Causes: Findings from the Japan Collaborative Cohort Study. Yonago Acta Med. 2016 Mar;59(1):55-60. Epub 2016 Apr 1. Erratum in: Yonago Acta Med. 2019 Dec 28;62(4):308. PMID: 27046951; PMCID: PMC4816749.

[4] Liu, T., Wang, Y., Wang,

[5] Chen H, Zhang B, Ge Y, Shi H, Song S, Xue W, Li J, Fu K, Chen X, Teng W, Tian L. Association between skipping breakfast and risk of cardiovascular disease and all cause mortality: A meta-analysis. Clin Nutr. 2020 Oct;39(10):2982-2988. doi: 10.1016/j.clnu.2020.02.004. Epub 2020 Feb 17. PMID: 32085933.

[6] Kogevinas, M., Espinosa, A., Castelló, A., Gómez-Acebo, I., Guevara, M., Martin, V., Amiano, P., Alguacil, J., Peiro, R., Moreno, V., Costas, L., Fernández-Tardón, G., Jimenez, JJ, Marcos-Gragera, R., Perez-Gomez, B., Llorca, J., Moreno-Iribas, C., Fernández-Villa, T., Oribe, M., Aragones, N., Papantoniou, K., Pollán, M., Castano-Vinyals, G. and Romaguera, D. (2018), Effect of mistimed eating patterns on breast and prostate cancer risk (MCC-Spain Study). Int. J. Cancer, 143: 2380-2389. https://doi.org/10.1002/ijc.31649

[7] DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jand.2022.08.11

[8] USDA. 2020 dietary guidelines advisory committee systematic reviews.Part D. Chapter 13: Frequency of Eating

[9] St-Onge MP, Ard J, Baskin ML, Chiuve SE, Johnson HM, Kris-Etherton P, Varady K; American Heart Association Obesity Committee of the Council on Lifestyle and Cardiometabolic Health; Council on Cardiovascular Disease in the Young; Council on Clinical Cardiology; and Stroke Council. Meal Timing and Frequency: Implications for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention: A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association. Circulation. 2017 Feb 28;135(9):e96-e121. doi: 10.1161/CIR.0000000000000476.

Planning and production

Author: Ruan Guangfeng, Director of the Science and Technology Department of the Kexin Food and Nutrition Information Exchange Center

Review丨Zhang Yu, Researcher, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Doctor of Medicine

Planning丨Zhong Yanping

Editor: Zhong Yanping

Proofread by Xu Lailinlin