Its supposed to be Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner when people are supposed to eat, three times a day, but a new study finds people eat all the time. In fact, people eat constantly for almost 15 hours a day. This was discovered when scientists studied smartphone pictures participants took before eating or drinking anything every day. One of the scientists in particular, Satchidananda Panda had shown by limiting mice or fruit flies by what they ate, this could affect weight gain and heart health. However, his studies were challenged when compared to humans, because humans eat three meals a day within the 12-hour period. The researchers for this study recruited 156 people to use their smartphones and instructed them to photogragh everything they ate for three weeks, and a time stamp was unknowingly recorded from their device. This seems to be a common thing anyway, with instagram and foods being posted on the site so normally. A number of participants also wore a wristband that tracked how much light they were exposed to and tracked their activity. This was a way for researchers to analyze the eating patterns of these participants.

Researchers found that people started eating about an hour and a half after they awoke, and continued to eat until a couple hours before bedtime. There were no large breaks between meals and about 25% of calories were eaten before noon and 37.5% after 6pm (Student Society for Science).

If you look at the chart, there is data shown for 11 people that prove people eat frequently over a period of more than 14 hours.

The timing of these meals; however, can affect health and weight gain of a person. These researchers conducted another follow up study, and this study I strongly agree with. As 8 of the sample size agreed to eat within no more than a 10-hour span, when they cut back they were not eating high-calories foods. These participants lost 7.2 lbs, and reported getting a better sleep, and not feeling as hungry during the night time. This just blows my mind, that eating less can result in better sleeping patterns and no need for hunger headaches. The goal of this study was to track participants in hopes of understanding their eating habits and changing when they ate.

This would be considered an observational study and it is direct causation, and 3rd variables are involved. Its observational because the study consisted of scientists analyzing people’s eating patterns and habits. It is direct causation because when people ate more they are bound to gain more weight, eating causes weight gain. However there are more 3rd variables involves such as risk of diabetes, bad sleeping habits, and bad exercising habits.

Then I began to wonder if people have a heavy influence in eating habits. I can easily relate to this because there are times when I plan to eat at home or don’t plan to eat at all, and friends invite me to get food with them. According to Science Direct, an observational study was done of customers in three different lunch settings: work site cafe, fast food restaurant, and moderately priced restaurant and looked at the relationships between meal duration and the number of people eating together at a table. The results were to suggest a significant positive correlation between group size and meal duration. As expected, the meal duration was longer in moderately priced restaurants than at the fast-food restaurant. This makes a lot more sense after completing this further analyses and probing for this study.

Works Cited:

https://student.societyforscience.org/article/if-you%E2%80%99re-awake-you%E2%80%99re-probably-eating

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195666303001090

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