Investigators observed a number of common characteristics among patients eating fewer than three meals a day.
The patients tended to be younger, male, non-Hispanic black, have less education and lower family income, smoke, drink more alcohol, be food insecure and have less nutritious food, more snack and less energy intake overall.
The results, published in the journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, found skipping breakfast to be detrimental to health.
Doctor Yangbo Sun, from the Department of Preventive Medicine at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, conducted the study with his team.
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