New Study Reveals Why We're Likely To Have The Same Breakfast Every Day
We've all heard the old adage that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It's true, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine, which says there are a lot of benefits to eating a meal in the morning. Not only does it give you energy and brainpower for the first half of your day, eating breakfast can also help reduce cholesterol, regulate your weight, and build stronger bones.
As with any meal, you have tons of options when it comes to your breakfast of choice. You can whip up scrambled eggs and toast at home, heat up a pack of instant oatmeal, or toss a couple frozen waffles in the toaster. If eating on the go is more your jam, so many restaurants have started offering breakfast menus, whether you're in the mood for a classic McDonald's Egg McMuffin or Chick-fil-A's chicken biscuit. However, despite the vast number of choices, many of us tend to eat the same breakfast day after day ... after day. Why is that? It turns out, there may be a scientific reason behind your go-to morning meal. Here's what a recent study revealed about your breakfast habits (via Appetite).
Many of us eat breakfast for practical reasons instead of pleasure
If you're a creature of habit when it comes to your first meal of the day, you aren't alone. A study published in Appetite journal analyzed the eating patterns of thousands of adults and found that 68% of people eat the same breakfast at least twice a week. According to one of the researchers, Dr. Carey Morewedge of Boston University, our routine morning meals have to do with the reason we eat breakfast in the first place (via Food & Wine). Thanks to busy schedules and the fact that we just need fuel for the morning (and are typically eating in a rush), Dr. Morewedge says that most of us opt for practicality over pleasure when it comes to what we're eating first thing — we just want something fast and nutritious rather than something elaborate and super yummy, as we might expect in a dinner, for instance.
Plus, once we start eating the same thing over and over, it just becomes part of our routine (and one less thing for us to have to think about when our brains and bodies are tired early in the day). "Because it's habitual, we may stick with our breakfast even long after we've tired of it," the researchers explained. It might be a habit worth adopting, as even former President Barack Obama says he eats the same breakfast every day to eliminate having to make yet another choice (via Entrepreneur). "I'm trying to pare down decisions," he told Vanity Fair, adding, "I don't want to make decisions about what I'm eating or wearing."