Ep.35 Skipping Breakfast and Student Weight Gain

Could breakfast be the hidden key to your teen's weight management success? Join me, as I uncover the truth behind the science of breakfast and its impact on adolescent weight. Many parents wrestle with their teens over the morning meal, armed with good intentions but lacking clarity on whether enforcing breakfast can actually aid their child's health. 

As a dedicated advocate for nurturing healthy habits in young people, I break down the complex relationship between skipping breakfast and weight outcomes. Whether you're a mom on a mission to assist your teen's weight loss journey or a listener keen on understanding the nuances of nutrition for adolescents, this podcast is your research-backed compass, pointing the way to informed decisions about your teen's diet and well-being.

I’m Dr. Jenny Gourgari—pediatric endocrinologist, certified in obesity medicine and a health coach.
After helping hundreds of teens struggling with their weight and hormones, I’ve created a whole new path by doing what most programs miss: balance puberty hormones naturally and create habits that actually last.

Here's what makes this different:
✅ No dieting. No calorie counting. No shame.
✅ No more food fights between parents and teens.
✅ No weight obsession—just healthy habits
✅ Real science behind how puberty hormones affect weight
✅ A safe, supportive approach that prevents eating disorders

Because when teens understand their hormones and get the right support, they don’t just lose weight—they gain strength, energy, confidence, and freedom!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
This is the Lifestyle in Weight Loss for Teens
podcast.
If you are a mom and want tohelp your child who is
struggling to lose weight, youare in the right place.
If you are looking for healthylifestyle tips, dr Gorgary is
here to help you understand thescience around safe weight loss
in teens and children, becausewhat works for adult weight loss
is not always the best forchildren.

(00:29):
This podcast is for educationalpurposes only.
Dr Gorgary does not providemedical, psychological or
nutrition therapy advice.
You should not use thisinformation to diagnose or treat
any health problems withoutconsulting your own medical
practitioner and now your host,dr Jenny Gorgary.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Hello, hello, welcome to another episode of the
Lifestyle in Weight Loss forTeens podcast.
This is Dr Jenny Gorgary, andtoday I decided to talk about an
issue that I hear there is alot of controversies going on
has to do with teenage breakfast.
Now I hear oftentimes myfamilies disputing with their

(01:14):
teenagers and they are trying toforce them in a way in a good
way, I know to make them havebreakfast, and oftentimes the
teenager would say I have notime, or I'm not hungry, or I
will eat at school.
So there is always this backand forth and I know it is

(01:34):
coming from a good place whenthe parents try to convince
their kids to have breakfast.
Now I wanted to look into morewhat is the evidence around
having breakfast and whetherthat helps or doesn't help with
weight gain, particularly inteenagers, and I will say that

(01:56):
this is somewhat controversialpoint and I'm going to present
to like as an example, twostudies that they were done to
investigate that question.
So there was a great study thatwas a systematic review.
It was published in 2010 andthe title of this manuscript is

(02:18):
systematic review demonstratingthe breakfast consumption
influences body weight outcomesin children and adolescents in
Europe.
So what they did is they puttogether data from different
trials that were conducted inseveral different countries in
Europe, including Croatia, czechRepublic, denmark, finland,

(02:41):
greece, netherlands, norway,portugal, spain, sweden and
United Kingdom.
So the authors kind of look atall these studies that they were
done and there were differentkind of studies.
Obviously, some of them werejust looking at the kids, asking
them how frequently they hadbreakfast during the week, or do

(03:01):
they normally have breakfast ornot, and then they were looking
at their weight or BMI.
If you don't know what BMI is,you can go back to episode one
where I tried to explain what'sa healthy BMI for a teenager and
how to reach a normal and howto calculate a normal or
unhealthy BMI.
So they kind of put all thedata together.

(03:24):
And when researchers tried toput all the data together from
different studies that weredesigned in different ways, we
have to take into considerationthere are some limitations in
terms of the scientific methodby which they reach those
conclusions.
But the big advantage of doingthat is that you can put

(03:46):
together a huge number of pointsand a huge number of subjects
and that kind of strengthensyour conclusion that probably is
closer to the truth.
So a total of number ofdifferent studies they included
was 16.
The total number of kids thatwere included in these studies

(04:09):
were 59,528.
Now, that is a very big number,and the ages of the kids that
were included in all thosedifferent studies range between
7 and 21 years of age.
So what they found by puttingall the studies together?
They found that 12 out of the13 studies found that skipping

(04:33):
breakfast was significantlylinked to children and
adolescent being overweight orobese, and one study reported
that consumption of breakfastthree to five days per week was
associated with higher chance ofbeing overweight, but this was
not significant for children whoate breakfast fewer than two
times per week.

(04:54):
So the conclusions that theauthors came to when, after they
did the studies, that it seemsthat most likely having
breakfast is protective in termsof having a good and healthy
weight.
Now I will say that there havebeen also other studies that

(05:19):
showed no significantassociation.
There was another study, forexample, that was published in.
It was published in Journal ofthe Academy of Nutrition and
Diadetics in 2019.
The title of this manuscript isBreakfast Consumption, family
Breakfast and a DepositoryRejectory in Adolescent the

(05:41):
Adolescent NutritionalAssessment Longitudinal Cohort
Study.
So what they did is they took atotal of 945 students from
different schools and then theyfollowed them over time and they
collected data on theirbreakfast consumption, whether
they have family breakfast, andthen they also look at their

(06:05):
body mass index and they alsolook at the percent body fat,
because they had a differentmethod to calculate percent body
fat, which is an informationyou don't get from BMI.
So they collected this data andthen they followed these kids
over time to see whether thekids that had consistently

(06:27):
breakfast versus the kids thatdid not have breakfast, whether
they tend to gain more weight.
And the total number of kidsthat were enrolled in this study
was 945, and the strength ofthis study is that it isitudinal
cohort, in other words, theydid not lump data from different

(06:48):
studies together, but they kindof had quite a big sample of
school students that theyfollowed over time and they can
see what the trajectory was.
And the researchers in thisstudy did not find any
significant association, anysignificant link between whether

(07:09):
they ate breakfast and what wastheir trajectory over the
following three years in termsof gaining weight.
And there are many more studiesout there.
So the question is, what shouldwe do?
What should we encourage ourteenagers to do have breakfast

(07:31):
or not have breakfast, I wouldsay the majority of the studies
seem to support the idea thathaving breakfast is a healthier
habit and has been linked withless weight gain, and that has
been the traditional school ofthought.

(07:51):
If I can say that, however, mypersonal approach and
professional approach to thissubject is what works for others
, what works for most people,maybe the best for your family
or may not be the best for yourfamily.
There are also differences inthe eating patterns of each

(08:11):
family and also in the eatingpatterns and schedule of all the
teenagers.
For example, there are someteenagers that I hear they have
lunch at school at 11 o'clock.
There are some teenagers thatthey have lunch at school at one
o'clock.
There are some teenagers thatskip breakfast but have lunch at

(08:32):
school.
There are teenagers that skipbreakfast and they also skip
lunch.
So it is very difficult to lumpall the patterns of choices
because every school district,every schedule for every
teenager may be different.
There are also some teenagersthat stop eating at eight

(08:53):
o'clock.
There are other teenagers thatstay up late and they eat when
they're like 11 pm or midnight.
So maybe the hunger signal onthose that eat late snacks,
which can be almost like smallmeals in the middle of the night
is not very high in the morning, the same as another teenager

(09:15):
who may have had dinner or a cupof milk or something in the
early evening and then theydon't have anything and they
feel more hungry in the morning.
Really, what makes thedifference is that we are able
to not let ourselves get a reachto the point of starvation, not

(09:36):
let our teenagers go feelingweak, not let our teenagers
develop all this eatingbehaviors that are not healthy
because they are skippingbreakfast in order to lose
weight, even though they do feelhungry and they do want to have
breakfast.
So I would propose that it isbest to have a discussion with

(10:00):
your teenager and try to look attheir schedule and
individualize what is the bestapproach and take this into
consideration.
There are studies that canpoint towards both directions.
But force feeding breakfast, Iwould say, is not probably the
ideal scenario and I don't thinkit works, also especially in

(10:24):
the teenagers.
But trying to be morecooperative with teenagers and
try to discuss the differentavailable scenario and trying to
make the teenagers being morein tune with their hunger
signals and so that they are notletting themselves starve and
then end up overeating wouldprobably be the best way to

(10:47):
approach this.
So that's all I had for youtoday.
If you found this helpful andyou believe we may be a good fit
to work together so that I canhelp your teenagers get to a
healthy weight, you can alwaysfeel free to book a free
consultation call with me.
Lifestyle14scom.
Forward slash call.

(11:08):
I'd be happy to talk to youmore.
Take care and I'll talk to yousoon.
Goodbye.

Speaker 1 (11:43):
Thanks for tuning in and we'll catch you in the next
episode of Lifestyle and WeightLoss for teens.