Campus Review Vol. 29 Issue 2 | February 2019 | Seite 6

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campusreview.com.au
Dress it up
A very brief history of
academic dress.
W
ith graduation season
approaching, academics and
students will soon don caps and
sweeping gowns. The contrast between
the gravity of academic rank and the odd
costumery can be startling; you respect a
dean but find it hard to reconcile that with –
despite its grandiosity – the clownish velvet
Tudor bonnet.
The New York Times, in 1896, took
a different approach to this garb: “The
popular mind would hardly associate
with the persons of college professors
any particular gorgeousness of apparel;
yet in the caps, gowns and hoods which
they wear on ceremonial occasions
there are such a diversity of colours and
richness of material as to create more than
passing notice.”
In the Middle Ages, however, such
elaborate dress wasn’t worth appraising –
it was standard. Established by the
Catholic clergy from the 12th century
onward, European universities demanded
that their monk scholars were robed
accordingly. With their brown or black
gowns and hoods, they embodied the
‘town and gown’ distinction. But their
dress didn’t just signify religious status,
it protected their shaved heads from the
Breakfast myth could be toast
Eating a meal in the morning may be
linked to increased body weight.
‘B
reakfast is the most important meal of the day.’
It’s one of the most common pieces of nutritional advice
people shill out unprovoked, but they might be leading
dieters astray.
A new review, published in the BMJ, has revealed that daily
calorie intake is higher in people eating breakfast, and that skipping
it does not cause greater appetite later in the day.
The authors found no good evidence that eating breakfast
promotes weight loss or that forgoing it leads to weight
4
damp chill of the universities’ cathedral or
monastery environs.
Unlike codified academic regalia today,
then it was more ad hoc. Alms bags
became hoods, and people added layers
for warmth. Yet in the late 14th century,
things began to change. In England, some
colleges proscribed ‘excessive apparel’
and mandated the wearing of long gowns.
Then, during the 16th century reign of
Henry VIII, Oxford and Cambridge adopted
official dress codes.
As modernity beckoned, uniforms
dissolved. Hoods became skullcaps, which
eventually morphed into the distinctive, flat
square-topped trencher (also known as a
mortarboard). Oxford sanctioned the use of
the tassel in 1770.
When universities opened to the
masses, academic dress became a sign of
distinction – the attainment of a degree –
rather than of the everyday.
Now, once rabbit fur-lined cloaks are
largely lined with the faux variety, and
wool and silk have mostly given way to
eco-friendly recycled synthetic fabrics –
an inadvertent nod to academic regalia’s
ascetic past.  ■
gain. In fact, those who skipped breakfast were on average
0.44kg lighter.
For the study, Monash University researchers looked at evidence
from 13 randomised controlled trials that either explored the
relationship between eating or skipping breakfast and changes in
body weight, or the effect of breakfast on daily energy intake.
Total daily energy intake was higher in groups who ate breakfast
compared with those who didn’t, with an average of 260 more
calories consumed in a day.
The team found no significant difference in metabolic rates
between breakfast eaters and skippers.
Due to the varying quality of the studies included, the authors
stressed that the findings should be interpreted with caution, but
they added that the review questions the popular recommendation
that eating breakfast can help with weight control.
“Although eating breakfast regularly could have other important
effects, caution is needed when recommending breakfast for
weight loss in adults, as it may have the opposite effect,” they
concluded.
In a linked editorial, Tim Spector, professor of genetic
epidemiology at King’s College London, said that the study’s
outcome should not be that all overweight people would benefit
from skipping breakfast.
“Some people are programmed to prefer eating food earlier in
the day and others later, which might suit our unique personal
metabolism,” Spector wrote.
Still, he said that while waiting for dietary guidelines to change,
“no harm can be done in trying out your own personal experiments
in skipping breakfast”.  ■