So I don’t eat breakfast. I never ate breakfast when I was a kid.

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I do brunches with girlfriends and my husband makes a mean breakfast on the weekends (breakfast is his life; he can’t function without it). I love eggs, bacon, french toast, pancakes…all the good stuff. I just don’t eat it in the morning because I’m not hungry.

When I was in grade 3, I had to do a homework assignment where we drew pictures of what we ate in a day. There was a box for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. In the breakfast box, I drew a large glass of water. I handed in the assignment and my mom got a call from my teacher.

I’m at home when this happens and she doesn’t understand what’s going on. She asks my eldest sister to come and help translate. They hang up the phone and roll their eyes at me. The conversation that followed was something like this (in Cantonese of course):

“You told your teacher you don’t eat breakfast?”

“Yeah, I don’t.”

“There’s food in the fridge, why don’t you eat it?”

“Yeah I know, I just don’t want to eat it. I’m not hungry.”

“Next time, tell them you eat breakfast or she’s going to think we don’t feed you”

“OK”

At that moment, I was annoyed with my teacher and my mom. I didn’t understand what the big deal was. This was the first of many incidences where I learned to bend the truth in order to fit in. I told people I ate breakfast (even though I didn’t) up until I got out of high school.

As I reflect on this as an adult, I understand where my teacher’s concerns came from. There are many children who go to school hungry because their families lack access to adequate food. She wanted to make sure I was OK at home.

My mom’s perspective is that a call from the school meant I did something bad (given her experience of Hong Kong’s education system in the 1950’s).

As per the best parenting guidelines, a real conversation about food and hunger probably should have happened between us. But it didn’t.
I’m guessing there a number of reasons why (no time, other priorities, views on the types of conversations you have with your kids, etc). When I recently asked my mom about this she told me she doesn’t remember this happened.

As a mom, will I have that conversation with my daughter? I honestly hope so. What I take from this memory is to try my best to understand and accept that everyone can have different eating habits.

Our bodies are built differently and hunger cues are different for everyone. I don’t condone children skipping breakfast but I think we need to remain mindful about their developing relationship with food (which may be different from ours).

As long as they are functioning happily and healthily, I am not going to force my child to eat when they don’t want to. More on my journey of recovering from an eating disorder and poor body image another time.

As for myself, my body works the way it does and I am a natural follower of Intermittent Fasting (Google it ❤).

Instead of my large glass of water in the morning when I was a kid, I have my large cup of black coffee. I don’t feel hungry in the morning until 11 am or 12 pm. I eat dinner around 6 and I usually fast for 16 hours, 5 days a week.

Weekends are a wash. Breakfast being the most important meal of the day is a myth. That’s my truth about breakfast. I’m no longer going to lie about it in order to fit in (along with many other things).

So Readers, do you eat breakfast? How has this changed since you were a kid?