To Skip A Meal or Not To Skip A Meal

Throughout the day you are faced with many different decisions, some can be easy and some can be hard. One decision that is made regularly and usually without much thought is what to eat that day. While some people may go with leftovers from the night before, some others may go with whatever they are craving that day. But what if you don’t have anything to eat and the only place around to get food is a vending machine? Do you just go without eating or do you decide on an option from the vending machine? Which one is better for you overall? While it may seem like a good idea to go hungry rather than eating extra calories, not eating actually hurts your health and causes more harm than good.

Food is what our bodies use to produce energy and keep us going. The calories we consume are vital to our bodies operating efficiently. When you don’t eat, your body goes into starvation mode and begins to store fat and burn muscle for energy.  Healthy Trucker published an article regarding eating junk food or skipping a meal and stated that “you’re depriving your body of nutrients by skipping meals.” By skipping meals you are allowing your body to become fatigue and depriving your brain the nutrients it needs to concentrate efficiently. An article at Human Kinetics states “Meal skippers don’t perform as well. They accomplish less work, are physically less steady, and are slower at making decisions.” Whether you’re working throughout the day or going to school, the traits that accompany skipping a meal are not useful traits when you are trying to be productive. While eating junk food may seem like a bad idea, it can actually help to curve your hunger and give your stomach something to metabolize so your body has energy. Although, that’s not to say that anything you consume out of a vending machine is the right choice. When choosing an item from the vending machine, you should go with something that is high in protein like peanut butter crackers, a bag of nuts, or trail mix. The protein is better for your brain and body than the bad carbs found in most vending machine items.

Skipping meals also leads to overeating at your next meal which isn’t healthy for anyone. Depriving your body of the nutrients it needs to function can have negative consequences when you do eat again. Woman’s Health Magazine states that when you do eat again hours later “your body feels
relief—but it’s short-lived. Your metabolism will stay low since it doesn’t know when the next supply of calories is coming. And your blood sugar takes a plunge again, ushering in the low energy, brain fog, and mood swings you experienced all day.” Skipping a meal causes imbalance within your body that could have been avoided if you would have eaten something throughout the day. Overeating at your next meal does not account for the calories lost when you skipped a meal. In fact, you’re actually giving your body excess calories that it doesn’t need at the moment. Human Kinetics stated that “eating just one large meal tends to overwhelm your body with calories that it does not need at that moment. It’s like plugging all the appliances in your house into one socket. Even though the entire electrical system can handle all the appliances, if they are concentrated on just one circuit, you’ll blow a fuse. It is better to spread the nutrient load.” In other words, you’re giving your body all the nutrients you need but it’s not helping your body. By consuming all the nutrients you need at one time, your body is overloaded by nutrients and cannot absorb them all.

While some people may believe that skipping a meal can be a beneficial decision, it’s actually causes more harm than good. Skipping a meal leads to overeating which means excess calories. Not eating a meal can also make eating healthy harder to stick to. An article on Medical News Today about skipping a meal stated that when people skip meals “brain images have demonstrated
that the pleasure-seeking portion of the brain becomes turned on after looking at images of foods high in calories.” So, if you skip a meal, be prepared for that cake in the break room to look extra tasty. An article on A Healthier Michigan.org compared skipping a meal to the type of diet that sumo wrestlers stick to. “Most sumo wrestlers eat just two meals per day and make a point of sleeping directly after eating to slow their metabolism and increase fat storage.” If sumo wrestlers follow this kind of diet to gain massive amounts of weight, it cannot be healthy for someone’s diet to skip a meal instead of eating something even if it’s unhealthy.

Skipping a meal is not a healthy option for anyone. Skipping a meal leads to fatigue, lack of concentration, low blood sugar, and overeating when you actually do eat that day. Choosing an option from the vending machine is better for your body than just not eating at all because you’regiving your body some kind of the nutrients that it needs to be productive.

Reflective Memo

For this essay, I think my overall goal was to inform the reader to a particular question and then persuade the reader to see things the same way I do. I think that I did succeed as I asked a question that is interesting and something a lot of people probably ask themselves and I presented evidence to support my findings. I think this essay was a success because I answered the question with convincing evidence that was interesting and informative. The evidence I gave was interesting and supportive of my claim which helped my essay convince the reader of my side. The sources I found were helpful in giving my essay convincing evidence as to why you shouldn’t skip meals. I think the hardest part of this essay was trying to find sources. When searching for this topic a lot of forum type websites came up which aren’t credible and that made it hard to find actual sources. Another hard part of this essay was finding an argument to write on. There aren’t many arguments regarding food that interested me.