In all my books, I've emphasized the importance of breakfast. It's not exactly original; virtually all nutrition advice begins with "eat a healthy breakfast." Put five experts in a room and they might disagree about what, exactly, a healthy breakfast would consist of, but at least they're all on the same page when it comes to the importance of the meal itself.

Today's news adds weight to that advice, at least when it comes to teenagers. A new study shows that the kids who're least likely to eat breakfast are most likely to be overweight and obese. Here's the news summary:

This is one of those rare times when the full text of a study that's in the news is actually available online. What it tells us is illuminating:

When the study began, with surveys taken in 1998 and 1999, the kids who self-reported eating breakfast most frequently were most likely to be white, have a higher socioeconomic status, get more physical activity, and also eat more carbohydrates in general and fiber in particular. They were also least likely to smoke, drink alcohol, and be on diets or make other efforts to control their weight.

Isn't that interesting? The ones who're most concerned about their weight were also least likely to eat breakfast, which is probably the best tool they have to control their appetite and manage the quality of their diet.

Another interesting factoid: At the start of the study, 16.4 percent of girls and 13 percent of boys reported that they never ate breakfast. (They were 14 and 15 years old at this point.) Conversely, about 38 percent of boys and just 27 percent of girls said they ate breakfast seven days a week.

Five years later, there was no gender difference -- 17 percent of the boys who ate breakfast daily in their early teens had stopped doing that by their late teens.

Some more tidbits:

• The socioeconomic angle here is profound: 22 percent of the most affluent kids ate breakfast daily, while just 7 percent of them never ate it.
• Another profound difference: Fewer than 5 percent of smokers ate breakfast daily, while more than 18 percent never did.
• A really frightening number: Of the most active teens, those spending more than six hours a week in intense exercise, 16 percent never ate breakfast, vs. 26.5 percent who ate breakfast every morning. If you want to sabotage a young athlete's development, that seems like a pretty good starting point.

I've talked about energy flux quite a bit in my articles and books. Quick summary: The more you eat and exercise, the faster your metabolism, and the leaner you're likely to be. Flipping it around, the more you restrict the calories in your diet, the slower your metabolism will get, and the harder it will be to control your weight.

This study offers a perfect illustration of the importance of energy flux: The boys and girls who ate breakfast daily ate the most total calories per day (2,136 for the girls; 2,293 for the boys). The ones who never ate breakfast took in the fewest overall calories (1,736 for the girls; 2,109 for the boys).

And yet, average body-mass index was lowest for the daily breakfast eaters, higher for those who ate breakfast intermittently, and highest for those who eschewed breakfast entirely.

No matter how the researchers crunched the numbers, no matter how many variables they accounted for, the higher BMIs were found in those least likely to eat breakfast -- despite the fact they ate fewer overall calories throughout the day.

Monday blog meat

• The same researchers reviewed the literature on breakfast eating in adults, and found no clear associations between the morning meal and obesity or chronic disease. I don't have access to the full study, so I'm not sure what nuggets are buried in that (somewhat disappointing) conclusion.
• Bad news all around: Not only are vitamin E supplements linked to lung cancer (especially among smokers), but even snowflakes have been found to contain bacteria.