We’ve all heard the saying, “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” but have any of us questioned why?

I know I haven’t.

According to Kids Health, “Kids and teens who eat breakfast have more energy do better in school, and eat healthier throughout the day.” Without breakfast, we can get irritable and tired more easily.

Starting a day without breakfast is like trying to start a car without fuel in it: an impossible task.

Did you know that there are actually rules to breakfast?

Nutritionists have stated that in order for breakfast to be considered effective it must be eaten within two hours of waking up and should contain between 20-35% of your guideline daily allowance of calories (GDA).

Without these two components, Kids Health says the nutritional value of eating breakfast significantly decreases.

Not only does breakfast provide your body with essential nutrients such as calcium, iron, and B vitamins that are likely to be missed if not consumed at breakfast, but it has been proven that people who eat breakfast regularly are less likely to become overweight.

This is because without breakfast, people are more likely to snack on high-sugar and high-fat items mid-morning.

Breakfast has also been proven to improve brain function by restoring glucose levels to what they were before they decreased while you were asleep. Glucose is an essential carbohydrate that is used to keep the brain functioning. Breakfast has also improved memory and improved concentration.

Eating breakfast also lowers stress levels by improving people’s moods. Children who eat breakfast have improved grades and misbehave less.

An article on LiveStrong stated that people that skip breakfast regularly are at a higher risk of “heart disease, metabolic syndrome and digestive disorders and decreased bone health and physical energy.”

Skipping breakfast also dampens metabolism, increases fatigue, and detracts from concentration and performance. Skipping breakfast stops your body from receiving the enzymes that burn more fat.

While most of us teens do not have a healthy nutritious breakfast every morning is we do not have the time or energy to make one, we really should start finding a way.

According to other sources, sleeping through breakfast forces your body to begin feeding on fat instead of food in your stomach. While this is good for weight loss, skipping breakfast makes your body crave foods high in sugar and fat, which is obviously bad for weight loss.

If we allow our bodies to begin feeding on, we are more likely to eat junk food to restore energy in the first several hours of our day.

When we fill our bodies with junk food not only are we more likely to gain weight, but we are also depriving our bones of the building blocks they need to grow.

For those in their early teens, providing bones with lots of nutrients is especially important to ensure the ability to grow to the fullest potential.

While some people skip breakfast because they believe skipping a meal may help them lose weight, researchers from the University of Hohenheim in Germany conducted two studies that disprove that theory.

The first study found that when people skipped breakfast, their other two meals of the day had more calories in them to make up for the lost ones.

The second study proved that skipping dinner is more effective for weight loss purposes than skipping breakfast.

All in all, it is pretty safe to say that we should all start making a more conscious effort to eat a nutritious breakfast.