New Rule: No Eating after 6pm?

Once the clock strikes midnight (or in this case 6pm), all calories go straight to the waist, hips and thighs, right? Everyone has heard the mantra that eating after a certain time at night leads to greater weight gain, but is 6pm really a hard and fast rule? Danna Hunnes, Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, and The New York Post think not. However, there is agreement that eating at night can lead to greater weight gain, particularly when the late night munchies chooses junk foods as its snack of choice. James LeCheminant and others looked at the differences in weight among 29 male participants under two difference circumstances.⁴ The first involved a nighttime eating restriction, where no food was consumed between the hours of 7pm and 6am for two weeks.⁴ The participants lost about one pound each.⁴ However, when this restriction was lifted, the participants gained an average of 1.3 pounds back.⁴ Researchers concluded that this difference was mostly due to the fact that eating at night increased daily energy intake, rather than because the food was specifically consumed at night instead of during the day.³

The New York Post article also references an article in Women’s Health that discusses Eckel et al.’s research concerning the effects of evening eating on insulin levels, in which “ad libitum food intake [during the biological night] resulted in ∼20% reduced oral and intravenous insulin sensitivity.”² Eating in the evenings, when your body is more resistant to insulin’s effects, causes blood sugar to increase as well as excess sugar to be store as fat, both of which are unfavorable health effects.

Dietician Danna Hunnes suggests that adequately fueling oneself throughout the day should help to reduce nighttime hunger and thus lessen the weight gain effects that do result from eating unhealthy snacks late at night. Practitioners can utilize this information to help disseminate information to patients on what composes a healthy meal (i.e. a breakfast with enough protein, proper portions throughout the day, etc.) and thus help decrease individual’s need to snack after dinnertime.

¹Arnold, C. How to Cut Out Late-Night Snacking. (December 31, 2013). Women’s Health. Retrieved on October 16, 2016 from http://www.womenshealthmag.com/weight-loss/night-snacks. 

²Eckel, R. et al. Morning Circadian Misalignment during Short Sleep Duration Impacts Insulin Sensitivity. (November 5, 2015). Current Biology. Retrieved October 16, 2016 from http://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(15)01239-7.

³Fetters, K. Just how serious is that ‘no eating after 6’ rule? (August 29, 2016). New York Post. Retrieved October 16, 2016 from http://nypost.com/2016/08/29/just-how-serious-is-that-no-eating-after-6-rule/.

⁴LeCheminant, J., Christenson, E., Bailey, B., & Tucker, L. Restricting night-time eating reduces daily energy intake in healthy young men: a short-term cross-over study. (December 2013). British Journal of Nutrition. Retrieved October 16, 2016 from https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-nutrition/article/restricting-night-time-eating-reduces-daily-energy-intake-in-healthy-young-men-a-short-term-cross-over-study/3627087601F148E8D16163468FCB3F05.