You May Increase Your Risk of Obesity By Eating at This Time
Being obese, defined as having a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or higher, is linked with an increased likelihood of life-threatening health conditions, including heart disease, diabetes, stroke, cancer, and more. Right now, 73 percent of Americans are considered either obese or overweight, and roughly half of Americans have tried to lose weight within the past 12 months. However, as anyone trying to shed some pounds can attest, it’s never as simple as it seems. Maintaining a healthy diet doesn’t simply come down to what you eat, but also how much and how often—and now, a new study indicates that what time you eat can have an impact, as well. Read on to learn why eating at one particular time of day could be putting you at increased risk of obesity, and how to make a healthier meal plan moving forward.
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At its most basic level, weight management is all about balancing the calories you take in through food with the calories you expend through exercise. Eat more calories than you burn, and your weight will rise. Burn more than you eat, and your weight will fall. “This equation can be deceptively simple, though, because it doesn’t account for the multitude of factors that affect what we eat, how much we exercise, and how our bodies process all this energy,” say experts from Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “The causes of obesity are as varied as the people it affects,” they write, noting that “heredity is not destiny” when it comes to weight and health.
In particular, these experts say that “prenatal and early life influences; poor diets; too much television watching; too little physical activity and sleep; and our food and physical activity environment,” can all play a role in your likelihood of developing obesity.
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A controlled study, published in the Oct. 4 issue of the journal Cell Metabolism, says eating later in the day can increase your risk of obesity.
“In this study, we asked, ‘Does the time that we eat matter when everything else is kept consistent?'” Nina Vujovic, PhD, study author and researcher in the Medical Chronobiology Program in the Brigham’s Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders told Science Direct. “And we found that eating four hours later makes a significant difference for our hunger levels, the way we burn calories after we eat, and the way we store fat.”
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The study analyzed data collected from 16 subjects with a BMI considered either overweight or obese as they followed a pair of strictly scheduled meal plans. Though the diets in these two meal plans were identical in their nutritional content, participants were first instructed to eat at an earlier meal time, and later instructed to eat four hours after that initial time.
The participants self-reported their
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