“We should ‘eat breakfast like a king’ to fight obesity, scientists claim,” the Daily Mirror reports.

The headline was prompted by a new review into “chrono-nutrition”, which involves seeing if when we eat is as important as what we eat.
The review suggests eating more of our total daily food intake in the evening – the pattern most common among people in the UK – may be linked to obesity. But the evidence for this is not conclusive, and the studies included in the review vary in their findings.

The study also shows there is a wide variation in the eating patterns of people in different countries.

Previous research found eating breakfast is linked to a lower risk of obesity, supporting the theory that it’s better to eat earlier than later.

However, this study’s authors say we are still a long way off understanding the optimum eating patterns for health.

One note of caution is that the methods used in this review are poorly described and not what you would expect to see from a comprehensive systematic review. This means it’s possible the authors have not considered all literature relevant to the issue.

Current dietary advice is not to skip your morning meal and to eat a healthy, balanced breakfast with plenty of wholemeal, vegetables, fruit and limited saturated fat, sugar and salt.

Published by NHS