Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, right? Wrong it seems, according to a new article courtesy of The New York Times.

In a recent post for the publication, writer and professor of Pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine Aaron E. Carroll says that the concept of breakfast being essential is nothing but a myth. Carroll believes that studies published to prove otherwise are by and large biased towards the companies that sponsored them.

As Carroll puts it, the myth that breakfast is the most important meal of the day is one that society as a whole really wants to believe in. He explains of previous studies throughout the years: “People were consistently biased in interpreting their results in favour of a relationship between skipping breakfast and obesity. They improperly used casual language to describe their results. They misleadingly cited others’ results. People believe, and want you to believe, that skipping breakfast is bad.”

But in short, the results of these scientific studies should be taken with a pinch of salt: “Many of the studies are funded by the food industry, which has a clear bias,” says Carroll.

Carroll’s advice? Ignore the studies and stick to what your body tells you. “The bottom line is that the evidence for the importance of breakfast is something of a mess. If you’re hungry, eat it. But don’t feel bad if you’d rather skip it, and don’t listen to those who lecture you. Breakfast has no mystical powers.”