不要忘记早餐

It fights obesity, diabetes, and heart disease all day.

If mornings are a mad dash at your house, breakfast may seem like a luxury you can't afford. But a healthy breakfast isn't just important for kids. A Harvard Medical School study found that breakfast eaters have one-half the risk of developing obesity and insulin resistance, a major risk factor for diabetes and heart disease, compared with breakfast skippers. The researchers think that the key may be calorie control, and a healthy breakfast has an almost magical ability to help with that throughout the day.

"When we eat, our body experiences something called the 'thermic effect' which means we burn calories just by digesting and absorbing our food," says Lona Sandon, RD, assistant professor at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. "If you get up at 7 am, skip breakfast, and don't eat your first meal until noon, that's 5 hours during which your calorie burn has slowed down," Sandon explains.

Need more reasons to nosh? Healthy breakfast eaters eat less fat and fewer calorie-dense foods all day, studies show, and consuming most of your calories early in the day means you're less likely to overeat or snack in the evening.

The trick to eating a healthy breakfast is to stock up on foods that are easy to eat. Sandon recommends adding these foods to your grocery basket: fat-free milk, low-fat yogurt, orange juice with calcium, peanut butter, almonds, walnuts, bananas, whole grain cereals, breads, and waffles. And Prevention editors like these morning-friendly items: