‘Fess up — did you skip breakfast this morning?

If so (whether it was a pure mistake and your cereal’s still sitting on your bench going soggy, or you make a point of skipping what’s been hailed the most important meal of the day), you’re not alone.

More than half of all Aussie adults and one in seven Aussie kids start their day without cereal, toast, yoghurt, fruit or a smoothie pick-me-up.

Consequences

Skipping breakfast can not only affect your mood and energy levels throughout the day — it can have a negative effect on your overall health.

A healthy, balanced diet is crucial for long-term health and helping to reduce your risk of a range of chronic diseases, including up to one-third of all cancers.

Making time for the first meal of the day is also an opportunity to boost your fruit and vegetable intake — important for the 95 per cent of us adults who don’t actually follow the recommended daily doses.

Yum

There are lots of easy ways to include more fruit and veggies in your breakfast. Add fresh or frozen berries to your cereal, try a cooked breakfast of spinach, mushrooms and tomato on wholegrain toast, fill up on baked beans or make a veggie omelette.

If you don’t have time to eat at home, pack a healthy breakfast to eat at work. Try individual oat sachets or small cereal packets, low-fat yoghurt and a small tin of fruit in natural juice or wholegrain toast with avocado.

Stay Healthy

Research from the US* found breakfast eaters were less likely to be overweight or obese, carry extra weight around the middle or have elevated cholesterol than non-breakfast eaters.

National Nutrition Week is celebrated every October — a great opportunity to kick-start a new habit of healthy brekkies for you and your family!

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*Deshmukh-Taskar, P., Nicklas, T., Radcliffe, J., O’Neil, C., and Y. Liua. 2012. The relationship of breakfast skipping and type of breakfast consumed with overweight/obesity, abdominal obesity, other cardiometabolic risk factors and the metabolic syndrome in young adults. The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES): 1999–2006. Public Health Nutrition.

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Originally published at Mum Daily. Photo by Vlada Karpovich.