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Adam Clark Writ 1133 – Erik Leak 5/16/2012 A surprisingly Healthy Breakfast Eating breakfast is a dilemma for many college students. Eating breakfast requires getting up early for class and either making breakfast or stopping somewhere for it. Making breakfast can require a lot of time and having food available while the other, quicker option, stopping somewhere to get food, requires time and money. Neither time nor money is something many college kids have endless amounts of so breakfast is often skipped. This can have many negative effects on both school performance and health. Looking at our classes eating habits, it was clear that many people skipped breakfast on a daily basis. This is not shocking as the options offered in dinning halls are often not worth getting up early for. There is little debate against the benefits of eating breakfast, but new research has showed that eating certain things for breakfast can maximize the benefits. Cereal, a food always available in the cafeterias and an easy food for students to store and makes a quick meal form, is shown to large health benefits. The amount of daily nutrients consumed can vary greatly depending ones choice of breakfast. A study done by the British National Diet and Nutrition Surveys, which recorded all food eaten by participants for a 7-day period was analyzed to find correlations between breakfast and the daily nutrients consumed. The goal was to see if breakfast, or more specifically cereal for breakfast, had more health benefits than no breakfast. Non-breakfast eaters consumed on average fewer calories daily than those who ate non-cereal or cereal breakfasts, but eating breakfast was associated with a lower daily fat intake (Gibson 82). The analysis showed that skipping breakfast led to the lowest daily intake of micronutrients. The intake of micronutrients was 6-18% higher for non-cereal breakfast and 30-90% higher for cereal breakfast (82). Even though more calories were consumed daily when breakfast was eaten, these percentages still show that the food eaten was more nutrient dense, up to 14% more dense when cereal breakfasts were eaten (83). This analysis just offers some light into the benefits of cereal for breakfast, and is simply reporting on the data collected by the British NDNS, but the results do show significant nutritional benefits from consuming cereal for breakfast. Cereal is an easy food for a college kid to have for breakfast. There is no preparation needed and I can easily by made in a dorm room. A simple breakfast cannot only provide morning class performance benefits by providing energy for the mind; it can lead to the consumption of healthy food later in the day. Cereal is not always though of as the healthiest option as they are seen full of sugars and carbohydrates which may be why it was not common breakfast item in our classes eating habits. But all of today’s cereals are filled with numerous nutrients that cannot be provided by many other breakfasts. Starting the day with cereal can provide the body with vital nutrients early in the day and often leads to more nutrient rich food to be consumed later in the day as well. Cereal can provide the beneficial breakfast that all college students should have. This quick meal that is healthy and can be prepared and eaten in 5 minutes should have a large appeal to college students who focus on maximizing time and performance, but the negative assumptions that cereal is not that healthy limits cereals occurrence in breakfasts. Works Cited Gibson, S. A., and P. Gun. "What's for Breakfast? Nutritional Implications of Breakfast Habits: Insights from the NDNS Dietary Records." Nutrition Bulletin March 36.1 (2011): 78-86. Web. 16 May 2012. .