Breakfast and weight loss

PubMed, Ovid Medline, and CINAHL were searched for randomized controlled trials published between January 1990 and January 2018. ClinicalTrials.gov and the World Health Organization’s International Clinical Trials Registry Platform were also searched in October 2018 to identify any registered yet unpublished or ongoing trials.

The trials in adults comparing breakfast consumption with no breakfast consumption included a measure of body weight or energy intake. Of 13 included trials, seven examined the effect of eating breakfast on weight change, and 10 examined the effect on energy intake.

Meta-analysis of the results found a small difference in weight favoring participants who skipped breakfast (mean difference 0.44 kg) but there was some inconsistency across trials. Participants assigned to breakfast had a higher total daily energy intake than those assigned to skip breakfast (mean difference 259.79 kcal/day, range 78.87 to 440.71), despite substantial inconsistency across trial results.

All of the included trials were at high or unclear risk of bias and had only short-term follow ups (mean period seven weeks for weight, two weeks for energy intake).

This study suggests that the addition of breakfast might not be a good strategy for weight loss, regardless of established breakfast habit. As the quality of the included studies was mostly low, the findings should be interpreted with caution. Further randomized controlled trials of high quality are needed to examine the role of breakfast eating when recommending breakfast for weight loss in adults as it could have the opposite effect.

Source:

• Sievert K, Hussain SM, Page MJ et al. https://www.bmj.com/content/364/bmj.l42. Accessed on: April 4, 2019.