Women who have big breakfast lose more weight

London - Breakfast has long been trumpeted as the most important meal of the day, particularly for those who want to lose weight.

Now scientists have proved that it is - and say the bigger the bowl, the better.

A study has shown that women who eat around half of their daily calories first thing lose more weight in the long term than those who start the day with a small breakfast. And they are also less likely to pile the pounds back on.

It is thought that eating a meal packed with protein and carbohydrates helps cut cravings for sweet or starchy foods, as well as boosting the metabolism.

Researchers from the Hospital de Clinicas in Caracas, Venezuela, looked at how breakfasting habits affected the weight of almost 100 obese young women.

All were put on a low-calorie, low-carbohydrate diet. However, half had a big breakfast, taking in almost half of their day's ration of 1,240 calories in a single high-protein, high-carbohydrate meal.

At the end of the study those eating big breakfasts had lost more than 21 per cent of their body weight compared with just 4.5 per cent for the other women, the Endocrine Society's annual conference in San Francisco heard yesterday, Dailymail reported.

Women on the 'big breakfast' diet reported feeling less hungry, especially before lunch, and having fewer cravings for carbohydrates.

Earlier this year, a study of thousands of British men and women found that those who ate the biggest breakfast put on the least amount of weight over a five-year period - even though they tended to eat the most food over the course of a day.

They concluded that skipping breakfast starves the body of nutrients and prompts it to store more of lunches and dinners as fat. It is thought that consuming up to half of a day's calories at breakfast gives the body time to digest food more efficiently.

(Agencies)