0:10
breakfast is widely touted as not only
0:13
the most important meal of the day in
0:15
general but specifically in relation to
0:18
weight loss this is not just a pop
0:21
culture prescription from checkout aisle
0:23
magazines but an idea put forward by
0:25
prestigious institutions such as Jos
0:27
Hopkins NYU Mayo Clinic right even the
0:30
United States Surgeon General want to
0:33
trim your waist read a headline American
0:36
dietetic Association try eating
0:38
breakfast referring to breakfast as
0:40
perhaps the best kept weight trimming
0:43
secret but is it true the Duke school of
0:46
medicine's health newsletter uh was
0:49
skeptical it's always been build as the
0:51
most important meal of the day until now
0:55
uh well it's widely presumed that eating
0:58
breakfast protects against obes
1:00
the belief is held up as a poster child
1:03
of biased Distortion of the scientific
1:06
record no one can argue that there isn't
1:08
an association between body weight and
1:10
breakfast uh Studies have shown that
1:12
obesity and breakfast skipping tend to
1:14
go together beyond a shadow of the doubt
1:17
in fact gratuitously so by 1998 we
1:21
already had what might be considered
1:24
strong evidence of an association
1:26
between breakfast skipping and obesity
1:28
but researchers continue to repeat such
1:31
studies to the point of ridiculousness
1:34
this meta analysis found that by 2011
1:37
the combined P value had reached 10 to
1:40
-42 okay what does that
1:43
mean why is that ridiculous in science P
1:47
value refers to the chance of getting a
1:49
result that extreme if in fact there
1:51
really was no such effect how small a
1:57
-42 this is how small that number is and
1:59
in other words the probability that the
2:01
association between obesity and
2:02
breakfast skipping was you know just a
2:04
fluke is less than the chances of
2:06
winning the lottery not once but five
2:09
times in a row and then subsequently
2:11
getting struck and killed by
2:13
lightning okay so the association
2:16
between breakfast skipping and obesity
2:17
is indeed Beyond question we know the
2:21
association is true people who Skip
2:24
breakfast are more likely to be
2:25
overweight that's beyond a shadow of a
2:28
doubt the question though
2:30
is whether that Ironclad relationship
2:32
between breakfast skipping and obesity
2:34
is actually cause and effect to
2:37
illustrate the difference between
2:39
correlation and causation uh let me
2:41
share an example of the manipulation of
2:43
Science by the candy industry the
2:47
national confectioners Association had
2:49
the gall to warn parents that
2:51
restricting candy may make their
2:53
children fat they justify this
2:56
outlandish claim with this study that
2:59
they funded of course that showed that
3:01
candy consuming children and Adolescence
3:04
were significantly less likely to be
3:06
overweight and obese the industry funded
3:08
research has go on to imply that this
3:11
exonerates candy but what's more likely
3:14
that cutting down on Candy led to
3:17
obesity or rather that obesity led to
3:19
the cutting down on candy right in other
3:21
words the lower candy consumption May
3:23
reflect the consequences of obesity not
3:26
the Cause right as as parents of obese
3:28
children try to restrict treats
3:31
similarly the finding that those who
3:33
Skip breakfast tend to be heavier is
3:36
equivalent to saying that those who are
3:38
heavier tend to skip breakfast right it
3:40
doesn't seem to be more likely that
3:42
overweight individuals might just be
3:44
skipping breakfast in effort to eat less
3:47
rather than eating fewer meals somehow
3:49
leading to weight gain now it's possible
3:53
that you know skipping breakfast could
3:54
you know slow your metabolism or cause
3:56
you to overeat so much later in the say
4:00
that you gain weight but you can't know
4:02
for sure until you put it to the
4:06
test sometimes randomized control trials
4:08
are infeasible impossible or unethical I
4:11
mean to test to see if parachutes save
4:14
lives you can't exactly boot half the
4:17
people off a plane without them but you
4:19
could easily randomize people to eat
4:21
breakfast or not and just see what
4:23
happens and it turns out eating
4:25
breakfast does not seem to affect your
4:26
metabolism rate or sufficiently suppress
4:29
your appetite type most studies 95%
4:32
found that eating breakfast tends to
4:33
lead to the same or greater caloric
4:36
intake over the day even when people ate
4:38
more at lunch after skipping breakfast I
4:40
mean they didn't tend to eat an entire
4:43
breakfast worth of calories more and so
4:46
ended up eating fewer calories overall
4:48
for example you know feed people about
4:50
500 calorie breakfast and at lunch they
4:51
may eat about 150 calories less than
4:54
those randomized to skip breakfast but
4:56
they would still end up with about a 350
4:59
calor Surplus over the breakfast
5:01
Skippers does this then translate into
5:04
weight gain over time researchers at
5:07
Brigham Young University randomized 49
5:10
women who habitually skip breakfast to
5:12
either start eating breakfast or
5:14
continue skipping if breakfast somehow
5:17
magically leads to weight loss then the
5:20
newly eating breakfast group should
5:22
benefit but no uh compared to those who
5:24
continued to skip breakfast adding the
5:27
extra meal led to hundreds more daily
5:29
calories consumed in nearly a half a
5:31
pound of weight gain a week if you
5:34
already breakfast and start skipping it
5:37
will you lose weight we'll find out next
