A scientific review
of the importance of breakfast for university students.
What you need to
know.
It has been drilled into our heads time and time again that
breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Despite this constant drone of healthiness we
(the University student population) constantly miss breakfast for various
reasons. We think that the extra 15 minutes of sleep is more important to our "focus" or that
cutting back on those early morning calories can help us loses some weight.
Sadly the truth of the matter is that breakfast really is the most important
meal of the day for a university student due mainly to its connections to one
major psychological construct: Willpower.
Breakfast provides the body with glucose which has a direct
relation to the amount of willpower a person has (or so the studies seem to
say). There are varying theories of how this works, but in general there is a
correlation between glucose in the morning and willpower throughout the day. Willpower is important as it has a direct connection to the ability to focus on a task or resist distractions, both of
which are vital to the study habits of a student.
In fact this increased willpower through the day is one of
the reasons why people that eat breakfast tend to be at a healthier weight. For a long time
it was believed that not having breakfast lead to the body’s metabolism slowing
down, but this is a myth as it would take 3-4 days without food for a body’s metabolism
to go into “starvation mode”. In actuality people that eat breakfast in the
morning have a higher amount of willpower so are less likely to eat something unhealthy
for lunch or overeat at lunch to make up for the calories lost not having
breakfast.
Now some of our more scientifically
minded readers might ask the question: "how does this works exactly?"
To be honest, there is a lot of debate on this subject and
no-one knows the answer for sure.
Basic convention of body energy allocation
states that glucose is not used when willpower or self-control is used. Despite this, many studies suggest a reserve
of energy created by glucose that is used whenever willpower is exerted (Gailliot
& Baumeister, 2007). This thus suggests a daily supply of willpower/self-regulation that
can be depleted throughout the day (perhaps this is why we make our best decisions in
the day and our worst at night). This theory is known as the “Energy Model of Self-control”.
Counter to the above theory is another theory suggesting that glucose
activates the dopamine pathways in the striatum (an area of the brain that is associated
with responses to rewards), thus readying the body for the possibility of
reward (Molden et al. 2012). What makes this study interesting is that it is
based on detection of glucose in the mouth and not the presence of glucose in
the blood stream. This means one could technically just wash out their mouth
with sugar water to bolster their focus or willpower and suffer no calories or sugar-crash effects from it. Even with this in mind it is important for the
body to have a source of slow digesting carbohydrate or you would have to wash your
mouth out with sugar fairly often. This
model is known as the “Motivational Effect of Carbohydrates” model.
But the one thing both of these have in common is that there is a definite correlation between glucose and self-regulation/willpower.
So what does this all
mean?
Eat a piece of whole wheat toast in the morning and maybe
throw in an egg and some fruit juice. Grab a handful of nuts or fruits for an hour later and you
should be good.
Really it is that simple.
A good slow digesting carbohydrate will allow a gradual release
of glucose as opposed to a sudden burst as is the case with simple carbs
(White bread, sugar, most breakfast cereals with a cartoon character on the box).
This quick burst tends to leads to "super" increased levels of glucose throughout the body,
triggering the pancreas to react and release insulin…thus making you sleepy and
sapping the glucose out of your blood stream.
So in short – Eating something good for breakfast can lead
to you getting higher grades and losing weight. Really what is there not to love
about breakfast?
Websites Cited:
Studies Cited:
Gailliot, M. T., & Baumeister, R. F. (2007, November).
The Physiology of Willpower: Linking Blood Glucose to Self-Control. Personality
and Social Psychology Review, 11(4), 303-327.
