Weight Gain and Obesity Determined By What Time You Eat

Some scientists are becoming increasingly interested in how altering what time we eat our food might play a part.
If changing our eating patterns could have even a small effect, it is worth understanding. Sticking to a restrictive, calorie-controlled diet is challenging, but eating at a different time of the day might be more easy to achieve.
The question is, does eating later in the day really make a difference? A recent experiment by scientists at the University of Colorado in Denver uses in-depth personal monitoring to gain fresh insight.
Weight Gain: Can Meal Times Really Make A Difference?
A recent study by researchers at the University of Colorado, evaluated the interaction between meal times and sleep-wake cycles. Previous research showed that sleep deprivation by itself can lead to obesity. It’s therefore important to parse which factor is most important: the time we eat our meal or our sleep-wake cycle.
Each participant wore an Actiwatch that monitored their sleep-wake cycles. They also wore an activPAL electronic device on their thigh. This measured how much time they spent both doing physical activity and being sedentary.
In addition, participants kept track of what they ate using a phone app called MealLogger. Using the app, they photographed each meal and snack they consumed and the time of day they ate it. A glucose monitored and verified dietary intake.
Weight Gain: Study Results
On average, volunteers ate their food during an 11-hour window and had 7 hours of sleep each night.