Wellness Nutrition Eat Well Why Your Random Eating Schedule Is Risky for Your Health By Maria Masters Maria Masters Maria Masters is a health writer and editor. Her work appears in Everyday Health, What to Expect, Men's Health, Family Circle, Health, Prevention.com, Men'sJournal.com, and HGTV Magazine, among other print and digital publications. health's editorial guidelines Published on June 24, 2016 Share Tweet Pin Email Getty Images Do you ever postpone dinner because you're in the middle of a project? Or skip breakfast because you overslept? As long as you avoid binging later on, it's no big deal, right? Well, maybe not. Two new papers published in the Proceedings of the Nutrition Society suggest that it's not just what you eat, but when you eat that affects your health. Having irregular meals may set you up for obesity, high blood pressure, and type 2 diabetes—regardless of how many total calories you're consuming. Irregular Mealtimes Matter One of the reviews examined international eating patterns and found a possible link between obesity and eating more calories in the evening. The other paper published in the Proceedings of the Nutrition Society concluded that people who consistently ate six meals a day had better cholesterol and insulin levels than those who ate meals with variable frequency—in this case, anywhere from three to nine meals a day. "We found that adults consuming calories during regular meals—at similar times from one day to [the] next—were less obese than people who have irregular meals, despite consuming more calories overall," says Gerda Pot, Ph.D., a visiting lecturer in the Diabetes and Nutritional Sciences Division at King's College London who worked on both papers. Really? While it doesn't seem to make sense that meal timing could affect your health that much, the studies are part of an emerging field called chrono-nutrition, in which researchers are exploring the link between metabolism and circadian rhythms. Body Metabolism and Health Many metabolic processes in the body—such as appetite, digestion, and the metabolism of fat, cholesterol, and glucose—follow patterns that repeat every 24 hours, explains Pot. "Eating inconsistently may affect our internal body clock," she says. And that disruption might lead to weight gain and other health risks. But just how significant is the effect of varying your meal times? "This is a really important and valid question which we, unfortunately, cannot answer yet," says Pot. "It would be of great interest to fully understand how much impact disruptions in our circadian rhythms could have on [our] obesity risk." So for now, it seems like a good idea to eat at the same time every day if you can. But if you can't, there are plenty of other ways to stay healthy, too. Was this page helpful? Thanks for your feedback! Tell us why! Other Submit Sources Health.com uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy. Almoosawi S, Vingeliene S, Karagounis LG, Pot GK. Chrono-nutrition: a review of current evidence from observational studies on global trends in time-of-day of energy intake and its association with obesity. Proceedings of the Nutrition Society. 2016;75(4):487-500. Pot GK, Almoosawi S, Stephen AM. Meal irregularity and cardiometabolic consequences: results from observational and intervention studies. Proceedings of the Nutrition Society. 2016;75(4):475-486.