How We Were All Convinced Breakfast Was "The Most Important Meal"

Growing up, we were told a lot of things that didn’t exactly hold up: coffee stunts your growth, carrots give you night vision, and breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Turns out… none of that is really true.

Coffee won’t mess with your height, carrots are great for your eyes but won’t give you superpowers, and breakfast? Well, that one’s especially interesting—because it wasn’t science that made it important. It was marketing.

Breakfast’s Big PR Moment

Back in the early 1900s, a man named John Harvey Kellogg—yes, that Kellogg—was big on health, routine, and cereal. He genuinely believed a fibrous, “clean” breakfast was the key to moral and physical wellness. His ideas caught on, and not long after, cereal brands realized they had a golden opportunity: tie their products to daily success.

By the 1940s, Grape-Nuts was running a campaign that said, “Eat a Good Breakfast — Do a Better Job.” The message popped up everywhere—from newspapers to radio ads—and it stuck. The idea that breakfast set the tone for your entire day became something people just accepted, despite the fact that it wasn’t really backed by science.

So... is breakfast actually important?

Sure! It can be. A good breakfast can help with energy, mood, and focus—especially if it’s something nutritious. But here’s the thing: no one meal has been proven to be more important than the others. What matters more is what (and how) you eat over the course of the whole day.

Some people love breakfast and can’t imagine starting the day without it. Others can’t even think about food until late morning—and that’s totally fine. Whether you’re team yogurt parfait or you don’t eat until noon, you’re not doing it wrong.

The takeaway?

Eat in a way that feels good for you. The idea that breakfast is the key to health was clever branding, not medical truth. So if your ideal morning starts with nothing more than a cup of coffee, there’s no need to feel guilty.