The kid in the commercial is depicted pulling his feet along a school hallway and stopping before the stairs because he didn't eat breakfast that morning and doesn't have the energy to bound up them like the other kids. The obvious solution is to drink their product - a protein smoothie-type concoction with all the nutrients any kid needs.
That seems like the more obvious solution in my mind. Upon further research of the actual product, I found a blog titled "Start With the Inside" that analyzed the ingredients of "Breakfast Essentials" and whether not it was a good alternative to actual breakfast (pointed towards an audience looking to lose weight). The post found that it contains 230 mg of Sodium and the second ingredient listed is sugar. In terms of losing weight, a sugary breakfast will make you crave more later in the day which can make a diet much harder to keep.
So "Breakfast Essentials" isn't actually a healthy alternative to real food for breakfast, filling you up with carbs and sugar rather than the nutrients you might get from an egg or healthy cereal. That covers the health issue...but whatever happened to sitting down to breakfast before school, talking it up with your parents - all that good stuff?
In my mind, the real issue isn't the particular healthiness of the drink but the fact that kids simply aren't taking the time to sit down and eat breakfast. Sitting down to a meal is such an underrated activity in a fast-paced world of instant communication and stress that no one seems to make the time for it anymore.
If we all sat down, just for 15 minutes every morning, to eat our breakfast, drink our coffee, and scan the newspaper or what have you, not only would we have the energy to start off the day right but we would also have given ourselves a few minutes of peace to get ready to face whatever we might need to during the day.
I hear what you're saying with both of your arguments. Personally I don't like breakfast food, but I can't make it more than an hour in the morning before getting hungry, so I tend to eat last night's leftovers. It works for me because I get a good balance of all the nutrients I need, and I also get to sit down and talk to my mom, even if it is only about 7 minutes. The problem I think with kids, especially teenagers, is that they either have to get up extra early to go to school and tend to be grumpy that early, or they simply lack a desire to eat in the morning and would rather get the extra 10 minutes of sleep. Both of these hypotheses fit my family. I take early bird science, which starts at 7:10, so I'm awake no later than 6:15, which causes my to drag and have little interest in conversation. My brother on the other hand has not eaten breakfast for about five months now. Either way, I think that unfortunately, our kids will always struggle to find a way to have social breakfasts, let alone breakfast at all.
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