评论
打印
Breakfast. It's the most important meal of the day -- or so we've been told.
早餐。大家总说这是一天最重要的一餐。
But science has tackled whether or not this is really true, and the results have been...mixed.
但是科学上还未有定论，而各种结果也很混乱。
One claim you've probably heard is that eating breakfast every day helps you lose weight,
有一种说法是每天吃早餐可以帮助减肥，
and there's definitely evidence to support this. At least, to a degree.
并且有确定的证据支持这个论点，至少，在一定程度上。
In 2017, the American Heart Association reviewed the science on the effects of different eating patterns,
2017年，美国心脏协会对不同饮食模式的影响、
searching databases for relevant studies and looking for big patterns in their findings.
相关研究的搜索数据以及结论的大规模进行科学审查。
And they concluded that people who eat breakfast are less likely to be clinically obese. So there you go!
他们总结得出吃早餐的人出现病态肥胖的可能性更小。所以这样你该懂了！
But... a lot of the studies this was based on just asked people to report their breakfast habits
但是很多这些研究都只是基于要求人们报告他们的早餐习惯
along with various other information about themselves.
以及关于他们的各种其他信息。
Without experimental data, there could be lots of other factors at play —
没有实验数据，可以有很多其他因素在其中起作用—
like, maybe people who skip breakfast also tend to be less active, or to eat poorer diets overall.
比如，不吃早餐的人可能没那么活跃，或者饮食不够全面。
When researchers actually do experiments, the benefits of breakfast become less clear.
当研究人员开始进行试验时，他们发现早餐的好处没那么明显。
For example, in 2016, researchers randomly assigned 23 people
例如2016年，研究人员随机指定23人
whose body mass indexes were in the obese range to either eat breakfast or not for 6 weeks.
（他们的体质指数都在肥胖范围内）在六周内，要么吃早餐要么不吃早餐。
They didn't standardize exactly what the first group had to eat, but it had to be at least 700 calories before 11AM.
他们没有确切地规定第一组必须吃什么，但是在早上11点前，至少吃掉700卡路里的食物。
Regardless, the researchers didn't find any difference between the two groups in their weight change during that time.
研究人员并没有发现两组人体重上的任何差别。
And other studies have been kind of a mixed bag.
其他研究也是说法不一。
So it's hard to tell if breakfast has a guaranteed effect on weight one way or another,
所以很难说早餐是否能够保证有减肥效果，
despite what lots of diet websites like to say.
不论那些减肥网站怎么说。
But hey, don't give up on breakfast just yet -- weight loss isn't the only potential benefit.
但也不要放弃早餐—减肥并非它的唯一潜在好处。
That same American Heart Association report found that
美国心脏协会的同一份报告发现
people who ate breakfast were less likely to have high cholesterol or high blood pressure or problems with their blood sugar.
吃早餐的人患高胆固醇、高血压或是血糖问题的几率小。
Even that 2016 experiment found that the group assigned to eat breakfast
即便是2016年的研究也发现吃早餐的那一组人
had increased insulin sensitivity at the end of the six weeks --
在六周结束后，他们的胰岛素敏感度增长了—
they needed less insulin in order to regulate their blood sugar, which is a good thing.
为了控制血糖，他们所需的胰岛素更少，这是件好事。
Right now, why eating breakfast would have these effects isn't totally clear,
现在为什么吃早餐会有这些影响尚不完全清楚，
but it's possible that people who skip it end up indulging more later in the day, which can affect their health.
但是可能不吃早餐的人在一天结束后会吃的更多，这就会对健康产生影响。
Outside of weight loss and general health, one place where breakfast also gets a lot of emphasis is in schools.
除了减肥和综合健康，学校也是强调吃早餐的地方。
School breakfast programs are popular because we hope that they'll help kids do better academically but even for this, the evidence is mixed.
学校早餐项目受到欢迎，因为我们希望这个项目能帮助孩子取得好成绩，即便如此，其证据也模糊不清。
A 2009 review of studies of school breakfast programs found that they can have a positive effect on academic performance,
2009年对学校早餐项目研究的审查发现这对孩子们的学业成绩有积极影响，
but that this may be partly just because they encourage kids to actually show up.
但是其部分原因在于他们鼓励孩子们。
And -- no surprise here -- the benefits of school breakfasts are greater for kids whose overall nutrition is poorer.
并且—请不要惊奇—学校早餐的好处对那些全面营养更糟糕的孩子更有效。
Another group of researchers took a look at the evidence out there in 2013,
另一组研究人员翻看了2013年的相关证据，
and they concluded that habitually eating breakfast did help children stay on task in school and improved academic performance.
他们总结得出养成吃早餐的习惯确实帮助孩子们在学校保持状态，成绩也有所提升。
But again, they cautioned that other factors could be getting mixed up in this, like socio-economic status --
不过，他们注意到其他的因素也参与其中，比如社会经济状况—
kids who eat breakfast may also come from families that are better able to provide for them overall.
吃早餐的孩子可能也是那些来自有能力提供全面营养的家庭。
Again, the problem is that a lot of these studies aren't experimental:
问题在于其中很多都不是实验性研究：
They're just comparing kids who already don't eat breakfast with those that do.
他们只是将已经不吃早餐和那些吃早餐的孩子进行对比。
This limits how much they can actually tell us.
这限制了事实的真相。
For example, a 2015 study in Great Britain had 292 kids between the ages of 11 and 13 fill out a questionnaire on their breakfast habits.
例如，2015年在英国的一项研究，让292名11到13岁的儿童填写一份关于早餐习惯的问卷。
And they didn't find any relationship between kids' breakfast consumption and their scores on a test of their cognitive reasoning ability.
在认知推理能力测试中，他们并未发现早餐和分数之间的任何关系。
Some actual experiments would help clear this up, but it's also not a great idea to deprive kids of breakfast if they want to eat it,
一些实际研究可以帮助解释其中原因，但是不给那些想吃早餐的孩子吃早餐并非好主意，
so for now, we'll have to work with what we have. Also, if you're wondering what this all means for adults --
所以目前，我们只能利用手头资源进行研究。如果你想知道这对成年人而言意味着什么—
whether breakfast improves our performance at work -- well, sadly, this hasn't been studied very much.
早餐是否可以提高你的工作表现—嗯哼，并没有很多相关的研究。
Unlike schools, adults' workplaces generally aren't in the business of feeding them
和学校不同，成人工作场所的职责并非提供食物
and don't usually hand out easy-to-interpret test scores, so data is probably harder to come by.
也不会分发易于理解的测试分数，因此很难得到相关数据。
So what's the takeaway here? If you're the kind of person who eats breakfast,
那么外卖呢？如果你是那种吃早餐的人，
chances are you're also already someone who has the resources to take good care of yourself and eats well overall.
那么有可能你也是有资源照顾自己，营养全面的人。
So just starting your day with a hearty breakfast if you don't already won't magically fix everything that's wrong in your life.
所以如果你之前不吃早餐，那么现在开始吃早餐也不会神奇到修复生命中一切不好的事情。
But it definitely won't hurt you, either. And it might even improve your health.
但是吃早餐也不会对你造成伤害，还可能会改善你的健康。
Thanks for watching this episode of SciShow!
感谢收看本期《科学秀》！
Nutrition research is complicated, and there's a lot out there to figure out — like the deal with sugar and fat.
营养研究很复杂，还有许多需要了解的—比如糖分和脂肪。
Lots of people like to say how horrible one or the other is, but how do they actually affect your health?
很多人都喜欢说它们有多么恐怖，但是它们到底会对你的健康造成何种影响？
You can learn more in our episode all about it.
在《科学秀》了解更多相关知识。
