Most nutritionists say that breakfast should be the largest meal of the day, partly because you have not eaten for the previous eight or even fourteen hours. These food-less hours are a fast, as are the longer periods of not eating undertaken by hunger-strikers or religious devotees. Accordingly, when you finally do sit down to your pancakes or Corn Flakes you are “breaking” your fast, and from this notion the word breakfast developed in the mid fifteenth century. The word fast, incidentally, is one of the strangest words in English because it is its own opposite. Fast can mean moving rapidly, as in lightning fast, or it can mean fixed in place, as in hold fast, fastened, or even fast asleep. The sense of fixed in place is the original meaning of fast, and in fact it is this sense that led to the word meaning time of not eating: when you decide not to eat, you must be “fixed” in your resolve, and you must “hold fast” to your decision. Similarly, if you are a hunter, you will only succeed in killing your animal if you stay close behind it—in other words, you must remain a “fixed” distance behind it almost as if you are “fastened” to it; from this sense of being “fast” with a fleeing animal, the word came to mean swift just as, for similar reasons, the Latin rapere, meaning to seize, developed into the English rapid.
The inaugural sustenance of the diurnal cycle, albeit customary application has restricted its purview to the matutinal feast.
The term “breakfast” is derived from the notion of breaking the fast after a prolonged period of not consuming any food, which makes it the initial meal of the day. Insufficient or inadequate breakfast can have an adverse impact on nutritional intake and overall well-being, particularly in young individuals. Studies have revealed that for the purpose of retaining physical fitness and alertness during the morning hours, breakfast should account for roughly one-quarter to one-third of the recommended daily protein and energy intake.