【英语语言学习】早餐没那么重要？

LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day or maybe not. A new study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition finds eating breakfast or skipping it might not make much difference. Popular theory holds that people who don't eat breakfast may binge later on lunch and dinner, leading to weight gain or other health problems. Other people argue that skipping breakfast will help you lose weight by eating less. Turns out - both could be wrong. Here to debunk¹ breakfast is the lead author of that study, Emily Dhurandhar. She joins us from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Thank you for being with us.

DR. EMILY DHURANDHAR: Thank you for having me, Linda. It's a pleasure to be here.

WERTHEIMER: First of all, I wonder if you could explain to us what you concluded. Have you basically decided² that breakfast is just another meal? It's not especially important?

DHURANDHAR: Well, when it comes to weight loss what we found is that whether you eat or skip breakfast, it doesn't make a difference.

WERTHEIMER: Any idea why?

DHURANDHAR: Well, we know to lose weight, you have to eat fewer calories than you expend³. So what our results suggest is that either eating or skipping breakfast didn't improve people's ability to eat less energy than they expend when they're trying to lost weight.

WERTHEIMER: There is research, I believe, that finds that people who eat breakfast have a lower risk of heart disease and diabetes⁴. What do you think about that?

DHURANDHAR: Yeah. There are lots of association studies out there suggesting that eating breakfast is associated with better health, but because breakfast is associated with better cardiovascular health, for example, doesn't necessarily mean that breakfast causes better cardiovascular outcomes. It may mean that eating breakfast is associated with something else, such as better exercise habits or better eating habits in general.

WERTHEIMER: So where do you think it comes from - the idea that breakfast is the most important meal of the day?

DHURANDHAR: No one's really studied it very carefully. But one thing that is pretty clear is that breakfast is really a cultural phenomenon. A lot of documentation about breakfast actually started back in the 1700s and 1800s. Even then they touted⁵ breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

WERTHEIMER: So if weight is what you're thinking about, eating breakfast or not eating breakfast is not going to make a difference there. What does that guide people to do, do you think? What are you going to do? Are you going to skip breakfast?

DHURANDHAR: Well, breakfast is very important to my sanity⁶ in the morning. I can't make it through without it. So I'll probably continue to eat breakfast. And I would say that we can conclude from our study that a very general recommendation to either eat breakfast or not isn't very helpful for weight loss. But we still need to do more studies to see if particular type of breakfast food might be helpful.

WERTHEIMER: Emily Dhurandhar - she is the lead author of a new study on breakfast and weight loss in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Dr. Dhurandhar, thank you very much.

DHURANDHAR: Thank you, Linda. It's been a pleasure.

1 debunk   

v.揭穿真相，暴露

参考例句：

• let's debunk some of the most common falsehoods.让我们来揭穿一些最常见的谬误吧。
• Sequences of maps can also debunk misconceptions.一系列的地图，也有助于厘清错误概念。

2 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

3 expend   

vt.花费，消费，消耗

参考例句：

• Don't expend all your time on such a useless job.不要把时间消耗在这种无用的工作上。
• They expend all their strength in trying to climb out.他们费尽全力想爬出来。

4 diabetes   

n.糖尿病

参考例句：

• In case of diabetes, physicians advise against the use of sugar.对于糖尿病患者，医生告诫他们不要吃糖。
• Diabetes is caused by a fault in the insulin production of the body.糖尿病是由体內胰岛素分泌失调引起的。

5 touted   

v.兜售( tout的过去式和过去分词 )；招揽；侦查；探听赛马情报

参考例句：

• She's being touted as the next leader of the party. 她被吹捧为该党的下一任领导人。
• People said that he touted for his mother and sister. 据说，他给母亲和姐姐拉生意。 来自辞典例句

6 sanity   

n.心智健全，神智正常，判断正确

参考例句：

• I doubt the sanity of such a plan.我怀疑这个计划是否明智。
• She managed to keep her sanity throughout the ordeal.在那场磨难中她始终保持神志正常。