Breakfast of champions? Or gut-wrenching nausea?

I have been a breakfast eater as far back as I can remember.

When I was a child, my mother encouraged me to eat a bowl of cereal or a piece of toast with a glass of milk before I headed off to school.

Now, I keep up my breakfast habit. What I eat has changed over the years, partly because of my schedule and partly because I have learned new things about what to eat and what not to.

Currently, I eat half a wheat bagel topped with a layer of natural peanut butter, followed by a serving of fruit cocktail a couple hours later.

Because I am a breakfast eater, does that mean I think everyone should eat breakfast? Not necessarily.

My husband is the other side of the coin. He hardly ever eats breakfast. He says he's just not hungry in the mornings, and if he forces himself to eat before his body is ready, he gets nauseous. Instead, he goes to lunch at 11 a.m., which is earlier than most people.

Should people like my husband be forced to eat breakfast? Common belief says so. And this Web site, Mr. Breakfast.com (the name of which makes me chuckle), backs up that common belief.

This site gives four reasons to eat breakfast:

1. Children who eat breakfast perform better on standardized achievement tests and have fewer behavior problems in school.


2. Eating breakfast has an advantageous effect on late-morning mood, satiety and cognitive performance.


3. Eating breakfast keeps you thin.


4. Breakfast is delicious.

Let's look to my husband, the non-breakfast eater, to examine those reasons. He never had any major problems in school on tests, nor did he get in trouble for his behavior. He works through his mornings just fine until he eats his lunch at 11 a.m. He has maintained his same healthy weight for several years now.

As for the last reason, I have to wonder how many scientific experiments they had to run to figure that one out.

It's interesting to note that not one of those reasons is: because you're hungry. I have always eaten breakfast in the mornings because I'm hungry, and I want to.

I came across an interesting post giving a different take on the breakfast debate. This view lets my husband and others like him off the hook.

Cari Corbet-Owen in her blog post challenges the assumption that an early breakfast keeps you slim. She says, "The breakfast buzz may have less to do with our bodily needs than to do with the clock, custom and breakfast ‘research’ funded by groups with a vested interest in our breakfasting habits."

Hmmm ... so, maybe the research that tells us breakfast is the most important meal of the day may not be from the most objective source. Are you surprised? I'm not.

Cari advocates a body-based approach to eating, meaning you should honor your body's wisdom, eat quality foods and check these theories for yourself.

I agree. In other words, if you're hungry in the mornings, eat breakfast -- and make it a nutritious one! If you're not hungry in the mornings, don't eat breakfast.

In the end, after you've read up on some information and considered the pros and cons, the best person to decide whether or not you should eat breakfast is you

Do you eat breakfast? Why or why not?