Stop giving them cereal.

Even the healthiest cereals are usually just a blend of different kinds of carbs: sugar and some of the worst grains imaginable (and don’t believe those “made with whole grains” labels — because that doesn’t make this stuff any healthier).

Some cereals are more than half sugar.

Environmental Working Group recently took a closer look at the ingredients labels of some of the most common and popular cereals and found that both Kellogg’s Honey Smacks and Post Golden Crisp are more than half sugar by weight — 55.6 percent and 51.9 percent, respectively.

Number three was almost there — Kellogg’s Froot Loops Marshmallow is 48.3 percent sugar.

Froot Loops by itself was already heavy in sugar (41.4 percent, coming in at number 10) — but when they added the marshmallows, they went for the record… and actually fell just a little short.

Better luck next time, Team Froot Loop.

And the Quaker Oats man, who’s supposed to represent old-fashioned purity? He’s actually responsible for FOUR of the top ten most sugar-soaked cereals: three flavors of Cap’n Crunch and something called Oh!s, which appear to be sugar-coated Cheerios.

You can see the full report here, which also features some helpful comparisons — like the fact that those Honey Smacks contain more sugar than a Hostess Twinkie.

Even the healthy-sounding Wheaties Fuel — breakfast of champions, but with “fuel,” right? — has more sugar than that Twinkie.

And a single cup of Honey Nut Cheerios has more sugar than three Chips Ahoy chocolate chip cookies.

When a Twinkie or Chips Ahoy cookies turn out to be the better choice, you know you created something special.

EWG has some alternatives for parents looking for better options — like unfrosted Mini Wheats and original Kix, which I think refers to the kicking and screaming kids do when they find out their Honey Smacks have been replaced by a “healthier” option.

In reality, cereal in general isn’t a healthy option for breakfast. If you’re in charge of mornings in your house, cook up something fresh each day instead — make it something all of you can eat together, and everybody wins.

And that makes breakfast the most important meal of the day, right?

Well, a new study flips the cereal bowl right over–because researchers have found that people who eat more at breakfast simply eat more, period.

And it doesn’t take a scientist to figure out what happens next.

German researchers asked 100 normal-weight people and 280 obese people to record everything they ate for 10 to 14 days.

They found that those who ate the biggest breakfasts tended to skip a morning snack… but other than that, they ate the same amounts of food throughout the rest of the day as those who had the smallest breakfasts.

Even people who had no breakfast at all ate the same for lunch and dinner as those who had the biggest morning meals.

And that means extra calories at breakfast are just that: extra calories. The researchers wrote in Nutrition Journal that people who ate big breakfasts consumed 400 more calories a day than everyone else.

That might be surprising after years of breakfast-food commercials emphasizing the importance of that first meal of the day, but it’s not surprising if you look at what most people eat in the a.m.–because it’s not exactly the foods your body wants or needs.

Most people eat some combination of bagels, English muffins, sugar-packed cereals, toast, pancakes, waffles, pastries and breakfast sandwiches.

And then, they wash it back with orange juice–or, worse yet, a sugar-loaded “specialty” coffee.

All those carbs aren’t just bad for you… they also cause spikes in blood sugar and lead to wild fluctuations in your appetite, making you hungrier sooner and craving even more carbs.

One study on rodents found that the ones given fats in the morning had normal metabolisms and were better able to handle the variety of foods that came along during the course of the day.

The ones fed carbs in the morning, on the other hand, had wacky metabolisms that locked in on carbs for the rest of the day–and were more likely to show risk factors for metabolic syndrome such as glucose intolerance and weight gain. (Click here to read more.)

Bottom line here: Enjoy a big breakfast if you want one. Just stick to an omelet packed with the real, fresh foods your body needs.

And if you simply must have some carbs, enjoy heart-friendly oatmeal–the real kind, not the instant junk loaded with sugar–and a bowl of antioxidant-rich berries.

It’s not just a great way to give yourself the energy and nutrients you need for the day–it might just save your life.

A new study finds that people who skip breakfast are more likely to have the risk factors for heart disease. And if you’ve been skipping out on morning meals since childhood, well, it might already be too late for you.

But don’t panic–not yet anyway–and I’ll tell you why after I tell you about this new study.

Researchers looked at data from the Childhood Determinants of Adult Health study, in which 2,200 participants were surveyed in 1985–when they were between the ages of 9 and 15–and again 20 years later.

They found that 1,400 ate breakfast as kids and adults, while 515 started out eating breakfast, but skipped it when they got older. Another 224 skipped breakfast as kids, but ate it as adults, while 86 have pretty much spent their entire lives missing out (or at least sleeping in).

The researchers found that those who missed breakfast the most had waistlines 2 inches larger than the rest, higher insulin levels, and higher levels of both LDL (“bad”) cholesterol and total cholesterol.

But it’s hard to take the conclusions from this one too seriously. After all, it was based on two surveys taken 20 years apart, which is not exactly the best way to carry out science. And it merely looked at risk factors–not actual incidences of heart attack and stroke.

So, like I said earlier, don’t panic if you haven’t been eating a daily breakfast.

I’d be willing to bet that no breakfast at all is a heck of a lot healthier than the sugar-loaded carb-fests that many people choose every morning.

Talk about getting your day off to the wrong start!

One recent study on mice even found that rodents fed fatty breakfasts had better metabolisms than those fed high-carb meals in the mornings.

The carb-loaded mice ended up with the risk factors for metabolic syndrome, while the fat-fed mice consumed fewer calories throughout the day–almost certainly because those healthy fats helped keep them feeling full and satisfied.

So if you haven’t been eating breakfast, now is a pretty good time to start. Just stick to bacon and eggs and avoid cereal and pancakes.

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