Breakfast is often described as the most important meal of the day, providing as it does sustenance and energy (i.e., calories) for whatever activities lay ahead. As nutritionist Adelle Davis famously put it back in the 1960s: “Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper.” (Sifferlin, 2013).1 According to the latest evidence, we should all be aiming to consume around 15–25% of our daily energy intake at breakfast (i.e., 300–500 calories for women and 375–625 for men; Spencer, 2017; though see also Betts et al., 2014). And yet the evidence from largescale surveys suggeststhat somewhere in the region of 18–25% of adults (Haines et al., 1996; Kant and Graubard, 2006; Spencer, 2017), and as many as 36% of adolescents in North America skip this putatively ‘most important’ meal (Seiga-Riz et al., 1998).2
According to researched by The Malaysian Adults Nutrition Survey (MANS), most respondents (74.16%) ate three meals per day; 89.20% of the respondents consumed breakfast, while 88.57% consumed lunch and 91.97% consumed dinner with no significant difference in terms of sex. Generally, breakfast consumption increased with age whereby significant difference existed between the 18 to 19 years age group and the age group of 30 years and older. Lunch intake among the age groups showed no significant difference. In contrast, dinner consumption was significantly lower among the 18 to 19 years age group compared to all other age groups.
In conclusion, there really are a number of reasons as to why breakfast should be considered the most important meal of the day. The decision about if and what to eat and drink at the start of the day has been shown to have some profound effects on our health, well-being, and cognitive performance. There are undoubtedly significant cultural differences in the kinds of foods that people in different parts of the world want, or think it appropriate, to eat at different times of day. However, beyond these cultural factors, not to mention the latest recommendations from the dietitian׳s (and the suggestions of the future forecasters), there are also a number of more fundamental psycho-physiological reasons as to why consumers may be drawn to different foods at different times of day.Considering that Malaysian adults consumed their conventional breakfast, lunch and dinner, these findings indicatethat Malaysians are maintaining their traditional meal patterns.
Cc : https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878450X17300045?via%3Dihub , https://www.mendeley.com/research-papers/meal-patterns-malaysian-adults-findings-malaysian-adults-nutrition-survey-mans/?utm_source=desktop&utm_medium=1.17.13&utm_campaign=open_catalog&userDocumentId=%7Bde9a0139-b2d8-44f0-b32a-6ddef6b82140%7D
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