To lose weight, some of us skip our main meals–such as breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
According to new research from the University of Eastern Finland, however, doing so now is associated with a higher risk of obesity.
Aino-Maija Eloranta, MHSc, who presented the results earlier this month at the University of Eastern Finland, says that children who skipped eating meals were more likely to have excess body fat, putting them at risk of obesity later in life. Worse yet, it increase their cardiometabolic risk, opening them up to a slew of chronic diseases as they grew up, including heart disease and type 2 diabetes.
The results are now published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
“Based on the findings, sticking to regular meals seems to be crucial for preventing overweight and cardiometabolic diseases already in childhood,” says Eloranta. “In addition, parents need to provide their children with better dietary choices: regular-fat vegetable-oil margarines and vegetable oils instead of low-fat margarines, fat-free milk and water instead of sugary drinks, and more fish instead of red meat at meals.”
Using a sample of 512 Finnish girls and boys between the ages of 6 to 8, Eloranta first assessed their cardiometabolic risk by collecting information on their waist size, cholesterol, blood pressure, and fasting serum insulin–all factors often caused by a bad diet. Information about their diets were also collected, which showed that a substantial amount of them skipped meals and ate more foods higher in protein.
Normally, skipping meals and eating more protein are seen as good dieting behaviors–a new type of diet, called intermittent fasting, even alleges it’s the best way to lose weight. But in this study, that simply wasn’t the case.
Instead, the children who engaged in these behaviors were more likely to have more excessive body fat, a major risk factor for obesity.
“The more of these factors are present, the higher the risk,” says Eloranta.
In addition to these findings, researchers also found that the children who did not have “normal” eating habits also engaged in other behaviors likely to lead to obesity, such as eating too fast, having a harder time feeling satiated, or eating due to emotional stress. In addition, their diets were hardly healthy–researchers report that those who skipped main meals ate more sugary, calorie-rich snacks.
Obviously, these eating patterns won’t lead to a slimmer bod.
“A minority of the children consumed vegetables, fruit and berries as recommended,” writes The University of Eastern Finland in a press release. “The intakes of saturated fat, sucrose and salt were higher and the intakes of dietary fibre [sic], vitamin D and iron were lower than recommended among the children.”
Bottom line? Skipping meals probably means you’re engaging in other unhealthy eating behaviors–some of which can lead to obesity.
What You Should Do
While intermittent fasting may be popular as far as diets go, it doesn’t mean it works for everyone. To lose weight, it’s better to focus on eating a healthy diet; after all, you gain weight from eating too many calories, not when you choose to eat it.
Readers: Do you skip meals? Why or why not?
Sources:
Skipping Meals Increases Children’s Obesity, Cardiometabolic Risk – ScienceDaily.com
Meal Skipping For Children Increases Their Risk of Cardiometabolic Problems, Obesity – AlphaGalileo.org
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