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Missed meals have negative effects

March 13, 2008

By: Mary Queisser <mqueisser@hilite.org>

Sophomore Christian Fiems skips lunch everyday to go to the library to work. ”It helps me get homework done,” he said.

Louise Tetrick, pediatrician at North Point Pediatrics, said skipping meals may not be the healthiest route because the brain needs a consistent source of energy. “The longer you go without giving (the brain) any fuel, the harder it has to work to break down fat and create its own fuel.” This can cause a drop in blood sugar, head and stomach aches, nausea and poor attention and performance.

According to Human Kinetics, a professional site devoted to the study of physical activity, if a person goes too long without eating, he or she will overeat at the next meal and the best remedy for this is grazing throughout the day.

The day of a wrestling match, senior Brandon Krieger would skip lunch in order to make weight. “If I had eaten a whole bunch for lunch, I would have to work off more before the match or I’d be overweight,” he said.

Krieger said though he wouldn’t necessarily have a full lunch, he would eat a banana or a protein bar, then eat a full meal later on that evening. “The difference was I just moved the meal from lunch time to dinner time,” he said. “It wasn’t like I was not putting the energy back in.”

Fiems also said he’d try to make up for missing lunch by snacking later on.
But Tetrick said moving meals is not a solution and that the body doesn’t work that way. “An analogy I use is you need to take so many breaths a minute to stay alive and you can’t go an hour without oxygen and think you’re going to make it up with a lot of breaths later,” she said. “You need a constant source of oxygen.”

And studies from the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity reported that students who snack are more likely to skip more meals.
If anything, Tetrick said, evening meals are the best to skip. “Usually your work or your homework is hopefully done so you’re not using as much attention and memory,” she said. “You might be more relaxed and doing more sedentary activities.”

Also, Tetrick said, when people fall asleep, their bodies’ metabolism slows down and doesn’t need as much fuel.

Skipping lunch, on the other hand, has the effects of skipping breakfast, though not as extreme, Tetrick said.

In Krieger’s case, Tetrick said it was okay to skip meals on occasion, as long as it did not become habitual.

Fiems said he didn’t know whether or not skipping meals is unhealthy. He said, “I just try to get my homework done.”

Updated by Xingping · Filed Under Feature 

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