Obesity is a complex epidemic
Weight gain and obesity have been described as a complex epidemiological problem in the United States. Previous research has found a link between poor diets, gaining weight, high body fat, and late-day eating as a factor in gaining weight; however, the effect of each person’s biological clock, regardless of the time of eating during the day, has not yet been discovered.
Relationship between weight and timing of eating
In a recent study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (AJCN) on September 6, 2017, researchers at BWH studied the relationship between body fat, body mass index and timing of eating for the day and the body’s biological clock. This is the first time to examine the timing of meals and its relationship to the beginning of the secretion of melatonin, which is the beginning of sleep.
“We found that the timing of eating and its relationship to the beginning of the secretion of melatonin, which is a sign of the beginning of the night of human biological, is linked to high body fat and BMI, and is not linked to time during the day, the amount or components of food.
“These results indicate that the timing of caloric intake, depending on your biological timing, may be more important to your health than the timing of the day,” said Dr. Andrew Mikel, researcher at BWH’s Sleep and Circulatory Disorders Department.
The researchers found that people with high fat intake ate most of their calories just before bedtime when the level of melatonin was high, compared to those with lower body fat.
The researchers said they could not determine the relationship between the timing of the meal, the amount of calories, the components of the meal, the level of activity, exercise, sleep time, and any measurement of their body composition. The researchers acknowledged several limitations that should be taken into account in future work, including the fact that the university student sector does not represent the rest of the sectors in terms of food choices, circulatory rhythm, and biological clock.
The researchers also reported that these findings provide evidence that eating during the evening or night, regardless of other factors such as the quantity or components of the food you eat and the level of your activity, plays an important role in the composition of the body.
According to research, people who eat their food soon after the onset of melatonin secretion are more likely to have higher body fat and body mass index than those who eat early.
