A Possible Characteristic Amongst Successful Dieters Is Eating Breakfast.

Did your parents lecture you about eating breakfast when you were growing up? If they did, then you can think yourself lucky.

Your parents did not have scientific evidence to back up their nagging back then, however, researchers now suspect that there may have been some rhyme to their reason.

A study conducted jointly through the University of Colorado, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Brown University and funded through the National Institutes of Health Grants and General Mills (a worldwide food manufacturer of popular brands such as Cheerios, Yoplait and Betty Crocker) was able to access valuable information through the National Weight Control Registry to survey successful dieters about their eating habits.

The National Weight Control Registry is a national database of individuals who have successfully lost a minimum of 30 lb's and kept it of for atleast 1 year.

Researchers decided to look at the variable of eating breakfast amongst people who had already lost a significant amount of weight. Their goal was to determine what these individuals were doing in order that characteristics could be identified. Researchers could then test these characteristics to see whether they play active roles in individuals maintaining a healthy body weight.

Research previously identified other factors that have been common in long term weight maintenance such as eating a diet low in fat, high in carbohydrate, regular self-monitoring of body weight and food intake and high levels of daily physical activity.

2959 members of the National Weight Control Registry were mailed out questionnaires asking about how often they ate certain types of foods. A year after the registry was created participants also answered questions about their eating habits over the last three months to provide additional information. They were also asked about how many days they typically ate breakfast in a 7 day period and about their physical activity.

The results of the study indicated that of the members of the National Weight Control Registry consisted of 79% women and 95% were white and 64% were currently married. Many of the participants had lost an average of 32 kg or 70 lb's and had maintained the minimum weight loss of 13.6 kg or 30 lb's for an average of 6 years. 78.3% of the participants reported eating breakfast 7 days per week, 90% reported eating breakfast on most days of the week - 4 or more days.

94.8% of participants who were asked if they ate breakfast in the last three months replied that they had. These subjects then indicated that 29.6% always ate cereal, 30.1% said they usually or often ate cereal, while 19.7% said that they never ate cereal. 31.4% said that they always ate fruit for breakfast and 24.2% said that they usually or often ate fruit, while 20.8% said that they never ate fruit.

Researchers then defined breakfast eaters as individuals who ate breakfast for four or more days of the week, and non-breakfast eaters as individuals who ate breakfast for less than four days of the week. They were then able to determine that within this sample of successful weight loss maintain-ers, there were 314 non-breakfast eaters and 2,645 breakfast eaters - but found no difference in weight loss between the groups or in the duration of the weight loss.

While researchers who conducted this study did not consider that it demonstrated a causal link between eating breakfast and long term weight loss, they felt that they have identified a possible characteristic of people who have maintained their weight over long periods of time.[1] Because the study results rest on the truthfulness or the accuracy of the respondent's answers, future study in this area needs to establish whether the act of eating breakfast plays any distinct role in maintaining a healthy body weight, or whether it is simply a coincidental behavior that accompanies continued successful weight loss. Eating Breakfast Part 2

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