Does Skipping Breakfast Actually Make You Overeat Later
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.
Or is it? This old health adage has fallen out of favor recently, particularly with the rise in popularity of intermittent fasting and time-restricted eating. Many people don't wake up hungry, and find comfort in knowing they don't have to force-feed something for breakfast just because they are supposed to.
From a weight-loss perspective, researchers set out to determine if skipping breakfast gives you an advantage or disadvantage. Some believe skipping breakfast leads to overeating later in the day, while others think skipping an entire meal is a good strategy for lowering overall calorie intake.
Researchers pooled data from 13 randomized controlled trials, which is considered to be the strongest type of study. People assigned to eat breakfast ended up consuming about 260 more calories per day overall than those who skipped it. In other words, skipping breakfast did not cause people to overeat later in the day to "make up" for it.
When it comes to losing weight, the breakfast-skippers came out very slightly ahead, meaning they lost a bit more weight than the groups that ate breakfast. But overall this was minimal.
So it appears that skipping breakfast does give a slight advantage when it comes to overall dieting. But it's important to remember that studies report averages. There is interindividual variability when it comes to this sort of thing.
If you are a person who lacks energy and concentration without breakfast, you should continue to eat it and cut calories elsewhere (under the assumption you are trying to lose weight).
If you are a person that has no appetite when you wake up, but people insist that you have to eat something, you can point to the results of this study. Breakfast isn't the metabolic must-do it's long been made out to be. If anything, the data lean the other way.
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This story was originally published June 18, 2026 at 11:30 PM.