In the rush of getting to school for early morning classes, many students don’t have time to eat in the morning, but according to experts, eating breakfast is important.
Julie Metos, professor in the department of nutrition, said that eating breakfast helps students perform better in school and makes them healthier in the long run.
“If you don’t eat breakfast, you’re more likely to gain weight later in life,” Metos said.
She said that many studies have been conducted about what makes people gain weight and not eating breakfast is always on the list.
She said that a balanced breakfast includes a complex carbohydrate and a protein, which should work together to keep students from feeling starved a couple hours later.
An example of a healthy breakfast would be scrambled eggs (protein) with wheat toast (complex carbohydrate).
Jim Rowan, director of dining services at the Heritage Center, encourages students to buy foods that are as unprocessed as possible.
Metos suggests eating before leaving home so it won’t be a temptation to buy fast food on the way to school.
But if students have to eat on the go, she recommends grabbing a PowerBar or an apple.
“If you must go to McDonald’s, get the Egg McMuffin,” Metos said.
Lara Crapo, a junior in communication and political science, usually tries to scarf down toast as she drives to school.
Even though she normally has to eat breakfast on the go, Crapo said she makes sure she gets some breakfast because if she doesn’t, she gets sick.
Metos said that some people avoid eating breakfast because they feel hungrier when they eat breakfast than if they had skipped the meal all together.
This is normal, Metos said. Breakfast will get the metabolism running and may cause a person to be hungry again as soon as 10 a.m.
Students can solve this problem by carrying healthy snacks in case they get hungry.
Metos recommends keeping a bag of apples in the car. She said that fruit is great for a snack and a healthy addition to breakfast.
But some students, like freshman Jameson Bawden, still like the taste of sugar in the morning.
Since his eighth-grade year, Bawden’s breakfast has consisted solely of Marshmallow Maties.
Bawden, a freshman in computer engineering, starts almost every morning with three bowls of the cereal with milk. But according to Metos, sugar cereal is not a good breakfast food.
“It just adds extra calories and doesn’t fill you up. Fiber is what fills you up,” Metos said.
Other “naughty foods” include gigantic breakfast burritos, as well as any items that contain a high level of sugar.
