Define "Breakfast"

The author of the South Beach Diet noticed a "phenomenon" when dealing with overweight people. Many of them, he said, skip breakfast altogether. Especially women.

Now, as a woman who skips the traditional breakfast routine, I buy that. But I also question it. See, Dr. Agatston suggests that not having breakfast "allows blood sugar to drop and hunger to increase over the course of the morning, resulting in powerful cravings for a lunch that includes carbs of questionable value." Hmm. Let's think this through. Or more importantly, let's define "breakfast."

If a woman who works a regular 9 to 5 job wakes at 6 am, makes a pot of coffee, takes a shower, puts on her makeup, curls her hair, and then grabs a bagel, an omelet, or a yogurt cup at 8, no one is going to argue whether or not she had breakfast, because she ate at the ungodly hour of 8 am. Ugh. I shudder to think of it.

If, however, a woman who works nights wakes at 10 am, makes a pot of coffee, checks her e-mail, posts a blog and then grabs a bagel, an omelet, or a yogurt cup at noon, she is said to have "skipped breakfast" because she ate at an hour most others reserve for lunch. But has she not broken her fast, like the woman with the day job, within two hours of waking? Is there any significant chemical difference?

Unfortunately, as I am neither a medical doctor nor am I related to one, I have here the beginnings of a hypothesis I cannot test. However, following each woman through the day might provide some food for thought.

If Traditional Working Woman A eats breakfast while Night Owl B is still sleeping and has lunch while NOB eats breakfast, then the hour TWWA sets aside for dinner should be the hour when NOB eats lunch. It's not. At six or seven p.m., maybe later, our NOB is, in fact, settling down for her second meal, but she's also expecting it to be her last. Chemically it's lunch, but practically it's dinner. At the end of the day, NOB is one meal shy. By not eating another meal around midnight, she's beginning her fast too early rather than breaking it too late in the morning. Our NOB has skipped DINNER, not breakfast.

And yet any diet worth its lack of salt is going to tell her not to eat after 8pm. That a midnight meal is madness. Sheer madness.

Now, if TWWA wakes at 6 a.m., having had, let's assume, a full 8-hour rest, she went to bed at 10 p.m. That would make the 8 p.m. food deadline reasonable -- two hours before bedtime. If our NOB wakes at 10 a.m. after an 8-hour rest, she went to bed at 2 a.m. Midnight, then, should be a resonable food deadline -- two hours before bedtime. Why, then, doesn't her diet tell her so?

We've made dieting too difficult in this country. It's really very simple: eat less, do more. But four words don't sell books -- and everyone is trying to get around the "do more" part by manipulating the "eat less" arena. So, while there's still big money to be made waiting for America to wise up and get off its collective duff, can we at least streamline the language?

My breakfast may come at noon, but it's still breakfast, damn it. When you want to start slamming me for skipping dinner, I'll read your book.