U of M: Your kids are fat because they don't eat breakfast

NBC Nightly News yesterday featured a report on a new University of Minnesota study that finds a link between obesity and skipping the bowl of Fruity Pebbles.

Consumer Affairs has a good summary of the findings:

Your mother always told you to eat a good breakfast. Maybe there's something to that.

Researchers at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health have found further evidence to support the importance of encouraging young people to eat breakfast regularly. They found that kids who ate breakfast on a regular basis were less likely than their peers to be overweight.

The study examined the association between breakfast frequency and five-year body weight change in more than 2,200 adolescents, and the results indicate that daily breakfast eaters consumed a healthier diet and were more physically active than breakfast skippers during adolescence.

Five years later, the daily breakfast eaters also tended to gain less weight and have lower body mass index levels – an indicator of obesity risk – compared with those who had skipped breakfast as adolescents.