Ep.41 Is It Healthy For Teens To Eat Oatmeal Or Corn Flakes For Breakfast?

Could your bowl of breakfast cereal be the hidden culprit in a teen's weight loss struggle? Tune in to learn more about the results of a study comparing oatmeal, cornflakes, and just water for breakfast. 

Geliebter A, Grillot CL, Aviram-Friedman R, Haq S, Yahav E, Hashim SA. Effects of oatmeal and corn flakes cereal breakfasts on satiety, gastric emptying, glucose, and appetite-related hormones. Ann Nutr Metab. 2015;66(2-3):93-103. doi: 10.1159/000365933. Epub 2015 Jan 23. PMID: 25612907.

I’m Dr. Jenny Gourgari—pediatric endocrinologist, certified in obesity medicine and a health coach.
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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
This is the Lifestyle and Weight Loss for Teens
podcast.
If you're 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 Gorgery 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 Gorgory 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 Gorgory.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Hello, welcome to another episode of the Lifestyle
and Weight Loss for Teenspodcast.
This is Dr Jenny Gorgory, andtoday I wanted to talk about
something that I hear a lot.
This is about breakfast options, and two of the most popular
breakfast options includeoatmeal and also cornflakes.

(01:16):
Now there has been actually astudy, very interesting study
that was done not in teenagers,however, I think that also
applies to teenagers most likely, and that's why I want to bring
it up how the two differentoptions having oatmeal versus
having cornflakes versus havingwater, how does that affect our

(01:39):
hunger and our feeling offeeling full and how much we're
eating for lunch afterwards?
So this was a great study.
As I mentioned was.
The actual title of themanuscript is Effects of Oatmeal
and Cornflakes Cereal Breakfaston Satiety, gastric, emptying,

(02:01):
glucose and Appetite-RelatedHorm hormones.
It was done in New YorkNutrition Obesity Research
Center in New York and, as Imentioned, it was done in adults
.
Now what the researchers did isthey asked men and women.
There were approximately atotal of 36 people.
They were in their latetwenties, early thirts, and they

(02:23):
asked them to have threedifferent breakfast options.
One of them was oatmeal with alittle bit of water and milk.
The other one was cornflakes,again with milk, and the other
one was water.
Now they asked them to eat itall at the same time, like they
gave them 10 minutes to finishtheir breakfast.

(02:46):
They told them not to doexercise during that day of the
experiment or the night before.
They also told them to finishtheir dinner at the same time
and the amount of calories theywere equally the same between
the oatmeal and the cereal.
Now, after they had thebreakfast, what they did is they

(03:10):
asked them to go and eat lunchand then they measure, like how
much lunch they had, and theyalso gave them some scales that
they could measure what's theirsatiety level, like whether they
feel full or not full, whetherthey feel hungry or not hungry,
and how much from a scale fromone to 10.

(03:31):
And then they compared theresults that they got.
They also draw a blood test andthey also did another test to
see how much, how quickly, thatstomach was emptying after the
different options they ate.
And, very interestingly, whatthey found was that on the days

(03:52):
that they had the oatmeal, thesubjects were feeling more full
and they ate significantly lessfor their lunch than compared to
when they had cornflakes orwhen they had water.

(04:12):
They also looked at the time ittakes for the stomach to absorb
Tylenol really, but that's likean indirect method that they
used to see how is theabsorption of the food also
affected, and they found that ittakes longer for the stomach to

(04:33):
empty when they are gettingoatmeal compared to when they're
having cornflakes.
Now, let me just pause here fora second and say that one of the
reasons that all theseanti-obesity GLP-1 medications
work is because they slow downthe absorption of the food from

(05:00):
the stomach.
Okay Now, and by having oatmealyou can achieve the same result
.
You can have your stomach.
The food stays for longer inthe stomach when you're having
oatmeal compared to when you'rehaving cornflakes, and that

(05:21):
gives you this feeling offeeling full, which is similar
to the feeling people that takeall these obesity drugs have.
And the question is why doesthis happen?
Well, one of the big secrets andthe big benefits of having
oatmeal as a breakfast isbecause you have more fiber

(05:45):
compared to if you have justcornflakes.
So cornflake is really refined.
What we call refinedcarbohydrate is really sugar
that is absorbed very quickly.
It leads to high spikes ofinsulin and therefore, after the
consumption of cornflakes orreally any other breakfast or

(06:09):
meal that is high in refinedsugars, you get a high spike in
insulin that leads to decreasein the insulin and a decrease in
the sugar that also gives youthis sensation of feeling more
hungry.
So one easy and natural way tohelp you feel more full that can

(06:32):
help you have less breakfast,less lunch after a good
breakfast, is if your breakfasthas oatmeal compared to if your
breakfast has refinedcarbohydrates like cornflakes.
Now, of course, there aredifferent types of oatmeal and
different types of corn flakes.

(06:52):
There is oatmeal that has sugaradditional of extra sugar, and
there is oatmeal that is justthe oatmeal, which is just the
fiber that you need, and thereis corn flake that has obviously
more sugar and corn flake thathas less sugar, and these
results can vary according toall these different factors.

(07:15):
But the main point I want to getacross today is that if you are
having breakfast and you feelhungry which I think is probably
a good idea for most teenagersto do if it works out well with
your schedule is to have betteroptions for breakfast, and I

(07:38):
would highly recommend havingoatmeal because it has a lot of
fiber.
The secret here is fiber.
What fiber does is it makes youfeel fuller, it makes you feel
less hungry and it can cut backon the amount of lunch, so you

(07:59):
don't overeat for your lunchbecause you have a good, healthy
breakfast.
Now I recently had anotherepisode where I talked about how
breakfast can affect the weightin teenagers, and if you
haven't listened to that, Iinvite you to go back and listen

(08:21):
.
It is on episode 35, skippingBreakfast and Student Weight
Gain.
You can go tolifestyleforteenscom forward
slash 35.
So it is a slightly differentepisode.
The focus and the main point Iwant to get across, as I said,
from this episode, is, if you'rehaving breakfast, choose

(08:45):
oatmeal over cornflakes and, inparticular, oatmeal that does
not have sugar, because this canhelp you regulate your appetite
, it can make you feel fullerand it can make you potentially
not overeat during your lunch.
Now, that's all I had for today.

(09:06):
If you want to reach out to me,please feel free.
Go to my website,lifestyleforteenscom, for a
slash call.
You can schedule a call with me.
You can contact me.
There are also free resourcesthat you can download if you
find helpful.
There's free recipes, there'sfree smoothies, there's some

(09:27):
other helpful information thatyou might find helpful, and if
this was helpful, please alsoshare it with your friends and
family or somebody who you thinkmay need to know.
That's all I had for today andI will talk to you next week.
Take care.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, I
invite you to come check out theLyft program.
It's Dr Gorgeri's 12-weekcoaching program for teens and
their moms, where we take allthis information, we apply it to
your daily life and we worktogether so your teenager learns
how to create a healthylifestyle so they can feel
happier, more confident, lessstressed and love their body

(10:03):
again.
Visit the website atlifestyleforteenscom and click
on the work with me and freeresources to learn more about
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.
Thanks for tuning in and we'llcatch you in the next episode of
lifestyle and weight loss forteens.