Eat breakfast to stay fit, mentally alert

Posted June 19, 2008 18:19:00

INQUIRER.net

STRUGGLING to shave extra pounds off your body? Try eating breakfast. Studies show breakfast delivers the necessary energy for a day’s work ahead and the extra oomph that won’t show up in your belly.

Researchers from the National Weight Control Registry, a database of more than 3,000 people who have lost at least 60 pounds and maintained it for a six-year average, discovered that eating breakfast daily was a weight control strategy for 78% of the participants. Thus breakfast, along with eating a low-fat diet and exercising for an hour or so every day, was deemed part of long-term weight control.

Published on Mr. Breakfast.com, these findings on weight control add to the list of perks of eating breakfast. And indeed getting one’s daily fix of the morning meal promises a lot more.

Doing wonders
Breakfast gives children the brainpower to achieve good marks in school, a Harvard University/Massachusetts General Hospital study of children revealed. Students who seldom skip the most important meal of the day “had improved math grades, reduced hyperactivity, decreased absence and tardy rates, and improved psycho-social behaviors compared with children who rarely ate school breakfast.”

Breakfast, too, does wonders for “late-morning mood, satiety and cognitive performance,” said Dr. Bonnie Spring of the University of Health Sciences/Chicago Medical School. "Eating breakfast of any kind prevent(s) many of the adverse effects of fasting,” irritability and fatigue, among others

Delicious choices
And when it comes to breakfast, Chowking is among those who reign supreme. Its almuchow roster offers a wide array of selections that hew closest to the Filipino taste. Its newest offering, the pork char siu — tender pan-griddled pork fillet in a thick, sweet hoi sin sauce — is served with garlic rice and egg. This is best dipped in another Pinoy breakfast staple: spicy vinegar.

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