早餐要吃好？其实不吃也无妨

Sorry, There’s Nothing Magical About Breakfast
早餐要吃好？其实不吃也无妨

I don’t eat breakfast. It’s not that I dislike what’s offered. Given the choice of breakfast food or lunch food, I’d almost always choose eggs or waffles. It’s just that I’m not hungry at 7:30 a.m., when I leave for work.

我不吃早餐。这并非因为食物不合胃口。如果让我选，不论早餐还是晚餐，我几乎一定会吃鸡蛋或者华夫饼。问题是，早上7点半出门上班时，我根本就不饿。

In fact, I’m rarely hungry until about lunchtime. So, other than a morning cup of coffee, I don’t eat much before noon. This habit has forced me to be subjected to more lectures on how I’m hurting myself, my diet, my work and my health than almost any other. Only a fool would skip the most important meal of the day, right?

事实上，不到午餐时间，我很少感到饥饿。因此，除了早上喝一杯咖啡，中午之前我基本不怎么吃东西。与其他习惯相比，这个习惯为我招来的告诫几乎是最多的，大家都提醒说，我在如何伤害自己，如何毁掉自己的节食计划、工作和健康。只有傻瓜才会跳过一天中最重要的一餐，对吧？

As with many other nutritional pieces of advice, our belief in the power of breakfast is based on misinterpreted research and biased studies.

我们认为早餐意义重大，但这种看法是以受到错误解读或有失偏颇的研究为基础的，就像其他许多营养学建议一样。

Our belief in the power of breakfast is based on misinterpreted research and poor studies.
我们认为早餐意义重大，但这种看法是以受到错误解读或有失偏颇的研究为基础的。

It does not take much of an effort to find research that shows an association between skipping breakfast and poor health. A 2013 study published in the journal Circulation found that men who skipped breakfast had a significantly higher risk of coronary heart disease than men who ate breakfast. But, like almost all studies of breakfast, this is an association, not causation.

的确，很容易就可以找到能够证明不吃早餐与健康状况恶化之间存在关联的研究。医学期刊《循环》(Circulation)在2013年发表的一项研究成果显示，不吃早餐的男性罹患冠心病的风险显著高于吃早餐的男性。不过，像关于早餐的几乎所有研究一样，它得出的是相关性，而非因果关系。

More than most other domains, this topic is one that suffers from publication bias. In a paper published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2013, researchers reviewed the literature on the effect of breakfast on obesity to look specifically at this issue. They first noted that nutrition researchers love to publish results showing a correlation between skipping breakfast and obesity. They love to do so again and again. At some point, there’s no reason to keep publishing on this.

这个话题承载的论文发表偏见，比其他大部分话题要多。在《美国临床营养学杂志》(The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition)于2013年发表的一篇论文中，研究人员通过梳理与早餐对肥胖症的影响有关的文献，专门审视了这个问题。他们首先注意到，营养学研究者很爱发表能够证明不吃早餐和肥胖之间存在关联的研究成果。他们一次又一次乐此不疲地这样做。到了一定的时候，根本就不存在持续发表这类东西的理由。

However, they also found major flaws in the reporting of findings. People were consistently biased in interpreting their results in favor of a relationship between skipping breakfast and obesity. They improperly used causal language to describe their results. They misleadingly cited others’ results. And they also improperly used causal language in citing others’ results. People believe, and want you to believe, that skipping breakfast is bad.

不过，他们还发现，发表研究成果的过程存在重大瑕疵。这些人普遍偏执把他们取得的研究结果解读为表明不吃早餐和肥胖有关。他们不恰当地使用随意的语言描述自己的研究成果。他们以容易引起误解的方式引用别人的成果。他们还会不恰当地使用随意的语言引用其他人的成果。这些人相信，而且想要让你相信，不吃早餐是个坏习惯。

Good reviews of all the observational research note the methodological flaws in this domain, as well as the problems of combining the results of publication-bias-influenced studies into a meta-analysis. The associations should be viewed with skepticism and confirmed with prospective trials.

对所有这些观察性研究进行的系统性回顾显示，该研究领域存在方法论上的瑕疵，还存在根据受发表偏倚影响的某些研究的成果进行元分析的问题。应该以怀疑的眼光来看待他们发现的相关性，并以前瞻性试验来证实。

Few randomized controlled trials exist. Those that do, although methodologically weak like most nutrition studies, don’t support the necessity of breakfast.

很少有人开展随机对照试验。和大多数营养学研究一样，仅有的几项随机对照试验存在方法上的不足，不过它们也不支持有必要吃早餐的观点。

Further confusing the field is a 2014 study (with more financial conflicts of interest than I thought possible) that found that getting breakfast skippers to eat breakfast, and getting breakfast eaters to skip breakfast, made no difference with respect to weight loss. But a 1992 trial that did the same thing found that both groups lost weight. A balanced perspective would acknowledge that we have no idea what’s going on.

2014年的一项研究（其所涉及的经济利益冲突大到超出我的想象）进一步加剧了这一领域的混乱局面。该研究发现，对减肥而言，让不吃早餐的人吃早餐，和让吃早餐的人不吃早餐，其实并没有差别。但1992年的一项类似的试验显示，两组人的体重都下降了。如果采用平衡的视角，那就应该承认，我们根本不知道到底是怎么回事。

Many of the studies are funded by the food industry, which has a clear bias. Kellogg funded a highly cited article that found that cereal for breakfast is associated with being thinner. The Quaker Oats Center of Excellence (part of PepsiCo) financed a trial that showed that eating oatmeal or frosted cornflakes reduces weight and cholesterol (if you eat it in a highly controlled setting each weekday for four weeks).

许多研究的资金都来自明显具有倾向性的食品行业。由家乐氏(Kellogg)赞助的一篇得到广泛引用的文章称，早餐吃麦片和拥有更瘦的身材之间存在关联。由桂格优质燕麦中心(The Quaker Oats Center of Excellence ，隶属于百事公司)资助的一项试验显示，吃麦片或者磨砂玉米片可以减肥并降低胆固醇（如果你在高度受控的环境中，连续四周每个工作日都吃的话）。

Many studies focus on children and argue that kids who eat breakfast are also thinner, but this research suffers from the same flaws that the research in adults does.

许多研究都以儿童为重点，并声称吃早餐的孩子更瘦一些。但在这类研究中也能看到以成人为对象的研究中所存在的那些瑕疵。

What about the argument that children who eat breakfast behave and perform better in school? Systematic reviews find that this is often the case. But you have to consider that much of the research is looking at the impact of school breakfast programs.

吃早餐的孩子在学校里表现得更好，这种观点又如何呢？通过系统性汇总可以发现，情况常常如此。但你必须考虑到，很多相关研究所审视的都是学校早餐项目的影响。

One of the reasons that breakfast seems to improve children’s learning and progress is that, unfortunately, too many don’t get enough to eat. Hunger affects almost one in seven households in America, or about 15 million children. Many more children get school lunches than school breakfasts.

吃早餐之所以能让孩子的学业有所进步，一个原因是吃不上饱饭的人太多了，这真令人遗憾。在美国，约有七分之一的家庭受到饥饿的困扰，换句话说，约有1500万儿童在忍饥挨饿。在学校能吃到免费午餐的孩子，比能吃到免费早餐的孩子更多。

It’s not hard to imagine that children who are hungry will do better if they are nourished. This isn’t the same, though, as testing whether children who are already well nourished and don’t want breakfast should be forced to eat it.

不难想象，忍饥挨饿的孩子如果能汲取足够营养，在学校里就会表现得好一些。不过这和测试营养状况良好但不想吃早餐的孩子是否应该被强迫吃早餐并不一样。

It has been found that children who skip breakfast are more likely to be overweight than children who eat two breakfasts. But that seems to be because children who want more breakfasts are going hungry at home. No child who is hungry should be deprived of breakfast. That’s different than saying that eating breakfast helps you to lose weight.

目前已经发现，不吃早餐的孩子比吃双份早餐的孩子更容易超重。但这似乎是因为，想要吃更多早餐的孩子在家里吃不饱。任何一个饥饿的孩子都不该被剥夺吃早餐的权利。而这和说什么吃早餐会帮助你减肥是不一样的。

The bottom line is that the evidence for the importance of breakfast is something of a mess. If you’re hungry, eat it. But don’t feel bad if you’d rather skip it, and don’t listen to those who lecture you. Breakfast has no mystical powers.

最重要的是，与早餐的重要性有关的证据基本是一团乱麻。如果你觉得饿，那就吃早餐。但如果你宁愿不吃，也别为此闷闷不乐，别理会那些告诫你的人。早餐并没有神奇的力量。