Side Effects of Skipping Breakfast
The wise saying, "Eat like a king in the morning, a prince in the afternoon and a pauper at night" not only tells us the importance of food but also places priority on breakfast. Just as an automobile needs gasoline to function, every human needs breakfast to fuel the unceasing daily metabolic activities in the body.
Dinners are awesome, lunch is good but having a healthy breakfast is inevitable. Starting your day without breakfast is comparable to starting your mobile device with a battery of null percentage. Skipping your breakfast therefore has a lot of side effects on your body.
In this article, we will walk you through the benefits of breakfast and the side effects of skipping breakfast.
Potential benefits of breakfast
Eating a breakfast can offer the following benefits to you:
- It supplies energy and essential nutrients
Your body needs energy and essential nutrients to carry out the normal daily activities. A breakfast that is rich in carbohydrates, vitamins, iron, folates, proteins and fibers provides the nutrients required to fuel your body metabolism for the day.
- It promotes a healthy heart and brain
Those who eat breakfast accumulate less fat and more fibers in their body, hence, the cholesterol level in their body is low. This reduces the risk of developing arteriosclerosis (blocking of the arteries by fat deposits) and thus prevents heart and brain diseases.
- It boosts your immune system
Eating an healthy breakfast can help your body to fight against pathogens. It boosts your body's gamma interferon which is a natural antiviral substance that activates immune cells in your body.
Now that you've known some of the benefits of eating breakfast, it's high time you knew the side effects of Skipping breakfast.
Common side effects of Skipping breakfast
- Your stomach acid increases
Skipping breakfast can cause the acidity of your stomach to increase. Normally, the acid produced in the stomach aids in the digestion of food. However, if this acid does not get enough food to process, especially in the morning when your stomach is most likely to be empty, it becomes so much that it surges up your food pipe and eventually causes heart burn.
- You may develop hypoglycemia
Not taking breakfast can lead to having low blood sugar. When your body does not get enough glucose required to fuel the regular body metabolism, it releases chemical messengers known as endorphins which trigger the release of stored energy. Your body begins to breakdown the reserves stored as glycogen. This may cause the sugar level in your body to become abnormally low, a risky condition known as hypoglycemia.
- Your immune system is weakened
Skipping breakfast lowers your body's ability to fight invading pathogens. White blood cells that fight against infections are starved and become weakened. This gives way to opportunistic pathogens that invade and cause infections.
- It causes hair loss
Hair loss is one of the major side effects of Skipping breakfast. Breakfast is the most essential meal of the day which supplies the highest amount of protein needed to build keratin, the protein that makes up your hair. Not having enough protein-rich breakfast weakens the hair, causing hair fall.
- It may cause weight gain
Skipping breakfast can make you overeat during the day because your body craves for sugary and fatty foods. Most times, the body system responds to the absence of breakfast as "starvation" and therefore increases the level of hunger. This will most likely cause you to eat anything that comes your way during the day in order to suppress the intense hunger. Overeating then results in weight gain.
Conclusion
Sometimes, we are the architect of our health problems because some little things we take for granted eventually affect our well-being. One of such risky acts is starting a day without a breakfast. Breakfast is obviously the most important meal of the day. Always remember that "You are what you eat".
