DONT EAT AFTER 8PM!

Everyone knows that late night snacking and obesity are linked, but it has nothing to do with WHEN your eating. It has to do with the fact that typically people who eat at night eat MORE then people who don't. So basically, it all goes back to calories in vs calories out. If you stick to your calorie allowance, it doesn't matter when you eat. For a person who doesn't track calories...yes, eating at night may be a potential issue because generally people are less active,bored, alone, watching tv, reading, on the computer and it's easier to just mindlessly eat.

Even if you totally STOPPED digesting your food at 8 PM (which is completely ridiculous, btw), a calorie is a calorie. It takes 3500 of them to gain a pound-- no matter what time you consume them. 200 calories after 8PM will effect your body the same as 200 calories before 8PM. Even if they sit in your stomach and don't get digested until morning... it's still the same calorie and you're not going to gain extra weight from it.

Arg. This is a frustrating read.

There is not enough information in the article to make any comments.

If this was a scientific study, you can be pretty sure that the scientists understand that causation does not equal correlation. These people are quite well versed in biostatistics, and they understand how to control for variable and how to detect which variable are statistically significant and which are not. There are software packages that make it pretty easy to do this.

It should be pretty obvious to a scientist that if a fat person consumes more calories than a thin person it probably doesn't matter what time of day they eat those calories. So if you are eating more icecream after 8pm in addition to all the crap you eat all day long, it doesn't take a scientist to know that obviously you will be gaining weight.

It seems its hip to be anti-science these days, but scientists really do understand about things like correlation, causation, and statistical relevance.

Yeah I don't agree with it. I think it matters what you're eating and how much sleep you're getting to digest it. Also, I think it has to do with metabolism of the individual as well as the fitness they're getting.

Arg. This is a frustrating read.

There is not enough information in the article to make any comments.

If this was a scientific study, you can be pretty sure that the scientists understand that causation does not equal correlation. These people are quite well versed in biostatistics, and they understand how to control for variable and how to detect which variable are statistically significant and which are not. There are software packages that make it pretty easy to do this.

It should be pretty obvious to a scientist that if a fat person consumes more calories than a thin person it probably doesn't matter what time of day they eat those calories. So if you are eating more icecream after 8pm in addition to all the crap you eat all day long, it doesn't take a scientist to know that obviously you will be gaining weight.

It seems its hip to be anti-science these days, but scientists really do understand about things like correlation, causation, and statistical relevance.

I'm not anti science - I'm anti journalist attempting to anaylze scientific research - they kinda suck at it. The link provided in this article didn't link to the study - it linked to ANOTHER article. At least the second article acknowleged the short comings of the study.

And I just found the actual study
RESEARCH METHODS AND PROCEDURES: Sixteen female rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) were ovariectomized and placed on a high-fat diet to promote weight gain, and we examined whether monkeys that ate a high percentage of calories at night were more likely to gain weight than monkeys that ate the majority of calories during the day.

Then in the RESULTS section it says

However, the percentage of calorie intake occurring at night was not correlated with body weight (r = 0.04; p = 0.87) or weight gain (r = 0.07; p = 0.79) over the course of the study. Additionally, monkeys that showed the greatest nighttime calorie intake did not gain more weight (p = 0.94) than monkeys that showed the least nighttime calorie intake.

The study says the opposite of what the article says.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16421340

*edit - sorry that was the first study referenced (controlled)

Here's the study they are referencing

Abstract
Sleep duration has been linked to obesity and there is also an emerging literature in animals demonstrating a relationship between the timing of feeding and weight regulation. However, there is a paucity of research evaluating timing of sleep and feeding on weight regulation in humans. The goal of this study was to evaluate the role of sleep timing in dietary patterns and BMI. Participants included 52 (25 females) volunteers who completed 7 days of wrist actigraphy and food logs. Fifty-six percent were "normal sleepers" (midpoint of <5:30 AM) and 44% were "late sleepers" (midpoint of sleep ≥5:30 AM). Late sleepers had shorter sleep duration, later sleep onset and sleep offset and meal times. Late sleepers consumed more calories at dinner and after 8:00 PM, had higher fast food, full-calorie soda and lower fruit and vegetable consumption. Higher BMI was associated with shorter sleep duration, later sleep timing, caloric consumption after 8:00 PM, and fast food meals. In multivariate models, sleep timing was independently associated with calories consumed after 8:00 PM and fruit and vegetable consumption but did not predict BMI after controlling for sleep duration. Calories consumed after 8:00 PM predicted BMI after controlling for sleep timing and duration. These findings indicate that caloric intake after 8:00 PM may increase the risk of obesity, independent of sleep timing and duration. Future studies should investigate the biological and social mechanisms linking timing of sleep and feeding in order to develop novel time-based interventions for weight management.

How do they determine that it was the eating after 8 PM that caused the weight gain and not just that those people were more likely to eat high calorie meals?

Personal experience - I eat 75% of my calories after 6PM and 25% after 8PM and I've lost 23lbs.

love psychology today. I eat 200 cals less than I am going to burn overnight. I know that I am going to burn 1000 cals. my BF% is dropping. Go figure. Know your cal burn cycles and eat to fuel them, but not to store fat during that time.

It's definitely true that snacking after 8pm will kill your sleep cycle, your body needs to relax for sleeping and eating will gve more energy and that is why some people have trouble sleeping at night. Think about it, we eat during the day to stay energized why do we need to eat before bed when we're just going to sleep?

without reading the article, for me, this is true. for one week over the summer i slept over a friends' house, and her family ate dinner very early (6pm). We hung out all night and didn't eat. At the end of the week, I realized I'd eaten about 400 calories less every day without effort. i think it all has to do with habits. people who eat at night tend to be heavier because at night, they are watching tv/surfing the internet and eating mindlessly, leading for more opportunities to overeat, leading to being overweight. I doubt the correlation has a lot to do with metabolic rate after a certain set hour.

With that said, i find that having lunch for breakfast, dinner for lunch, and breakfast for dinner works extremely well at controlling my calories.

I think it's a load of rubbish (trash) makes no difference at all when you eat, why would you body know what time it was anyway and even if it did why would calorie burning suddenly decrease? Makes no sense at all.

I've never had weight issues other than after pregnancies, (shedding the baby weight) and have eaten whenever I wanted, regardless of the clock.

It's definitely true that snacking after 8pm will kill your sleep cycle, your body needs to relax for sleeping and eating will gve more energy and that is why some people have trouble sleeping at night. Think about it, we eat during the day to stay energized why do we need to eat before bed when we're just going to sleep?

You're wrong, I get the "Itis" after I eat ribs and can fall asleep in a few minutes.