Smart start: do you eat breakfast? If you skip this meal, you're overlooking one of the easiest ways to help your body thrive.(nutrition)

Publication: Scholastic Choices

Publication Date: 01-SEP-08

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Breakfast is the most important meal of the day for everyone, including teenagers. Teens who eat breakfast have more energy, do better in school, and are less likely to be overweight than their peers who skip the meal. Yet up to 34 percent of kids and adolescents start their day on empty stomachs, according to several recent studies.

Erin Hamlin, 15, is one of them. She says she doesn't feel like eating right after she wakes up. "I'm not that hungry in the morning, so I just hold off eating until lunch," Erin tells Choices.

Seventeen-year-old Tyler Hudson, who attends the same North Carolina high school as Erin, does eat breakfast. Even though his mornings are rushed, Tyler will eat something before heading off to school. "Usually it's cereal or a Pop-Tart, something that I can eat quickly and fills me up," he says.

Tyler doesn't always eat the most nutritious breakfast, but at least he eats something. That's important, and here are two reasons why:

(1) Food keeps your body running after a night's sleep.

"You've been asleep for 8 to 12 hours, so you literally need to break your fast and jump-start your body and brain with food," says Elizabeth Ward, a registered dietitian from Reading, Massachusetts.

A grumbling stomach can be a distraction, whether...

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