It's supposed to be the most important meal of the day.

But on average we spend just three minutes and 15 seconds on a weekday breakfast – and we're so pressed for time that we often eat it standing up.

In fact, only half of us eat breakfast at all, research shows. Many prefer to have a lie-in, while others blame the growing pressure to get to work early.

Only a third of us now eat breakfast in the kitchen. Some resort to eating it in the bedroom, or even the bathroom, with 22 percent getting dressed at the same time.

Around a fifth manage to eat only half their breakfast because they have so little time, while more than a third say they eat their first meal of the day on the bus or train.

In Birmingham, 59 percent said they were too busy on the internet or watching TV in the morning to eat breakfast.

In London 57 percent said the same, and 52 percent of people from Bristol and 51 percent of Mancunians agreed.

One in seven eat at their desk at least one morning a week – and one in five confess to grabbing something as they run out of the door and eating it while they walk down the street.

But three-quarters still said it was the most important meal of the day, and seven in ten always have a hot breakfast, according to the survey commissioned by Weetabix.

Sian Porter, a company spokesman, said: 'Encouragingly, the research indicated that possibly 1.2million of us find time to eat a hot breakfast every single morning and demonstrates that Brits do understand the importance of breakfast, even going as far as eating it on the bus, or in the bathroom, to try and fit it in.'

(Read by Emily Cheng. Emily Cheng is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)

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(Agencies)