Eating past 8 p.m. won't make your kids fat

It's a long held belief among dieters that eating after 8 p.m. can lead to a greater weight gain, but now, a team of researchers has reported finding no such link.

Researchers at King's College London researchers examined the eating habits of 1,620 children, 768 children aged 4-10 years and 852 children aged 11-18 years, using data from the UK's National Diet and Nutrition Survey Rolling Programme collected between 2008 and 2012.

This national survey gathered information annually from food diaries, in which children or their parents recorded their dietary intake and meal timings over a 4-day period. The survey also collected measurements of weight and height which were used to calculate the BMI of the children.

Statistical analysis of the data showed no greater risk of being obese or overweight when eating dinner between 8pm and 10pm compared to eating between 2pm and 8pm for either of the age groups studied.

Lead author Dr Gerda Pot said that they expected to find an association between eating later and being more likely to be overweight but actually found that this was not the case. This may be due to the limited number of children consuming their evening meal after 8pm in this cohort.

The study also did not find any significant differences in the mean daily energy intakes for those eating their dinner before 8pm compared with those who ate dinner later and only a small number of statistically significant variations in daily nutrient intakes.

The new findings suggest there is currently insufficient evidence to support expanding dietary recommendations to include advice on when as well as what children eat. However, childhood obesity is a major public health issue and current advice is to improve dietary quality and increase physical activity to reduce the risk of becoming overweight and help to reverse excess weight gain. More research is needed to investigate the influence of the timing of eating on childhood obesity.

The study appears in the British Journal of Nutrition.