Eating three meals a day is often considered the best way to maintain a healthy diet and get adequate nutrition. But how does this apply if someone prefers snacking throughout the day instead? Some people find squeezing in three meals a day to be a challenge, whether it's due to time constraints or personal preferences. According to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, the proportion of people consuming three meals a day declined significantly from the 1970s to 2010 (73% to 59% in men and 75% to 63% in women). It's been 12 years since that survey, and people have become more stressed, so these factors also affect how often they eat. However, is it really that bad if you don't eat three meals a day? We spoke with a nutrition expert and dove into the research to find out.
This article explores the benefits of eating three meals a day, the history and cultural context of this eating pattern, and practical tips for incorporating it into your life. It also addresses common misconceptions and acknowledges that a one-size-fits-all approach doesn't exist when it comes to meal frequency.
The Origin Story of Three Meals a Day
Though we now take it for granted, the division of your daily diet into three meals -- breakfast, lunch and dinner -- hasn't always been the standard, and it still isn't in some places in the world. Before industrialization, as New York University food historian Amy Bentley told The Atlantic, people in the US tended to eat just two large meals, fueling their bodies for rural, outdoor labor. In ancient Rome, the custom was to eat one large meal, plus two small, light meals.
In the US, our eating habits are now typically organized around our work or school days. But cultural norms aside, there's no scientific reason for you to eat exactly three meals every day. "The number of meals in a day itself isn't key," said Marissa Kai Miluk, a registered dietitian nutritionist who specializes in stopping binge eating. "Every person is different and there is research on all ends of the spectrum of how many times a day you 'should' be eating."
Over the years, there have been studies that show benefits to eating more frequent meals, as well as studies that show the downsides of it. Some research has also found benefits to eating less frequent, bigger meals and -- you guessed it -- the downsides of it. With that said, the three-meals-a-day recommendation didn't come out of nowhere. In one sense, it all comes down to math: The average adult human requires 2,000 calories per day, and you're only awake for so many hours. "Across all peer-reviewed research and health practices, three meals a day is a general recommendation to encourage consistent, adequate energy intake," Miluk said. "Unless someone is seriously lacking in time or safe access to food, I would not recommend eating less than three meals a day, as that would require a large intake in one sitting in order to meet basic needs," she added.
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Still, the math can change depending on your own health needs and schedule, not to mention a ton of other, less quantifiable factors -- like, in my case, a love for snacks. More important than the number of meals, Miluk said, is consistency. Skipping meals, waiting all day to eat and other inconsistent eating patterns can have a range of unintended outcomes, from increased blood pressure to high or low blood sugar.
The Benefits of Eating Three Meals a Day
While the optimal meal frequency varies from person to person, eating three meals a day can offer several advantages:
- Provides Better Structure: Many individuals have followed a three-meal-a-day routine since childhood, making it a familiar and consistent eating pattern. This structure can simplify meal planning and reduce decision fatigue.
- Reduces Hunger and Cravings: Eating regular meals, especially those containing protein, whole grains, and healthy fats, can help stabilize blood sugar levels and reduce feelings of hunger and cravings throughout the day.
- Lessens Overeating: Consistent meal times can prevent excessive hunger, making it easier to avoid overeating and consume a balanced number of calories.
- Supports Adequate Energy Intake: Three meals a day can help ensure consistent and adequate energy intake to meet basic nutritional needs, especially for those with busy schedules or limited access to food.
Why Eating Three Meals a Day Can Be Challenging
Sometimes the choice to veer away from the three-meals-a-day schedule is just that -- a choice. But even if you'd love to eat a proper breakfast, lunch and dinner every day, it can be challenging. You can't always control when you get a moment to sit down and eat, or what food options are available. Mental health and stress can also affect appetite.
Let's call a spade a spade: Eating is work. Preparing a meal takes physical and mental labor, in addition to time and money. Even the process of figuring out what to eat can feel like an insurmountable obstacle when you have a million other things on your mind. And that's before you account for diet culture, which makes meal times even more fraught and stressful by equating thinness to health, and health to a moral virtue. (If your goal is simply weight loss, meal timing and frequency involves a whole other type of math.)
There's a lot of pressure to eat the "right" number and type of meals and cook them all ourselves, using fresh, whole ingredients. On a budget. While working and taking care of loved ones. Easier said than done. Sometimes it's more convenient to… not do all that, and just reach for a snack instead.
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While the number of people eating three meals a day has gone down over the past several decades, people are eating more calories overall; we're just getting more of those calories from snacks now. In some countries, it's relatively easy to access nutritious food -- and this is key -- that you don't have to cook yourself. Local foodways in Mexico and Ghana, for example, make it easy to walk down the road and get a cheap, fully prepared (and delicious) meal made with local protein and produce, or a bundle of fresh local fruit. Not so in many places in the US.
Still, the idea that you should cook all your meals yourself at home is a relatively recent phenomenon. In the past, only families that had space for a home kitchen and the means to hire help ate home-cooked meals every day. In cities, working-class people ate cooked food from small eateries and street vendors. Communal eating is also a treasured tradition in many cultures, both in the US and across the globe.
Three meals a day isn't some magic number; it's just a benchmark to help ensure you're eating enough consistently -- and modern life in this country makes it extremely difficult. So what can you do about it?
Practical Tips for Incorporating Three Meals a Day
If you're aiming to eat three meals a day, here are some helpful tips:
Go Back to Basics:
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- Prioritize eating three meals a day to rebuild trust in your body and reregulate your appetite.
- Establish a daily meal schedule as a solid foundation for consistent energy intake.
Practice Nonjudgment:
- Focus on what's realistic and convenient for you, taking all the barriers in your life into account.
- Remove any judgment about what your three meals consist of to increase the likelihood of actually eating them.
- Consider meal subscriptions, meal shakes, grocery delivery, help with meal prep, canned or prepared foods, food trucks, or cheap, easy produce.
Check-In with Yourself:
- Tune into your body's signals and use the hunger-fullness scale to maintain an eating schedule that works best for you.
- Take into account your food preferences, health needs and values, schedule, and accessibility.
- Ask yourself the following questions:
- How do I feel when I eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner consistently versus when I skip a meal?
- Do my meals and/or snacks sustain me until my next meal or snack?
- When I go long periods of time without a substantial meal or snack, do I notice any changes in my focus, energy, or mood?
- Do I pay attention to signs from my body for when I am hungry and when I am full?
- Are there any patterns to my appetite that stand out? Does my appetite stay stable throughout the day, or do I find I eat more at certain times of the day?
Plan Your Meals:
- Plan your meals ahead of time to avoid worrying about what to eat and when to go grocery shopping.
- Track your calories to ensure you're meeting your dietary needs.
Embrace Simplicity:
- Accept that struggling to cook three meals at home every day is not a personal failing.
- Keep meals simple by including two or three of the five MyPlate food groups: fruits, grains, vegetables, protein, and dairy.
- Use canned and frozen fruits and vegetables for convenience and longer shelf life.
Prioritize Protein:
- Include protein in each meal to maintain muscle strength and promote satiety.
Addressing Common Misconceptions
Is Breakfast the Most Important Meal of the Day?
Conventional wisdom dictates that breakfast is a necessity, that it jump starts your metabolism for the day and helps you lose weight. What’s more, observational studies consistently show that breakfast skippers are more likely to be obese than people who eat breakfast (6). Yet correlation doesn’t equal causation. This data does not prove that breakfast helps you lose weight, just that eating breakfast is associated with a lower risk of being obese. However, there is no evidence that breakfast “jump starts” metabolism and makes you lose weight. Nevertheless, eating breakfast may benefit certain aspects of health. It appears that the body’s blood sugar control is better in the morning (7).
Therefore, having a high-calorie breakfast results in lower average daily blood sugar levels compared to eating a high-calorie dinner (5). Also, one study in people with type 2 diabetes found that fasting until noon increased the rise in blood sugar after lunch and dinner (8). These effects are mediated by the body clock, also known as the circadian rhythm, but more studies are needed before scientists can fully understand how it works. People with diabetes and those who are concerned about their blood sugar levels should consider eating a healthy breakfast. But as general advice: If you are not hungry in the morning, skip breakfast. Just make sure to eat healthy for the rest of the day.
Is Snacking Bad for Weight Loss?
Snacking refers to the consumption of any food or drink in between main meals. Most studies show that snacking has no significant effect on weight loss one way or another (12) (21). Snacking may elicit different effects due to differences in timing and snack types. A common misconception about weight loss is that you need to completely cut out all snacks in order to see results. It’s important to understand that snacking itself is not the issue when it comes to weight gain. It’s the type and amount of snacks you consume that can lead to unwanted weight gain. In addition, completely cutting out snacks from your diet can lead to feelings of deprivation and cravings for unhealthy foods. Rather than completely eliminating snacks, you should focus on making healthier snack choices and practicing portion control. It’s also important to listen to your body’s hunger cues.
The Circadian Rhythm Connection
Understanding the science behind meal timing can have a huge impact on your health, both physically and mentally. Research suggests that a person’s ability to efficiently regulate their appetite is linked to a biological pattern called circadian rhythms. Circadian rhythms follow a 24-hour cycle that regulates the timing of physiology, metabolism, and behavior. It is imperative that eating and sleeping behaviors align with circadian rhythms.
Mild dyssynchronous behavioral patterns such as variability in mealtimes and sleep patterns throughout the week are common, and are sometimes called social and eating jetlag. Each of us requires a given amount of energy (in calories) each day. This energy is harvested from the carbs, proteins, and fats that we consume. When we fail to eat adequately throughout the day (for example, only one or two meals), it can be challenging to meet our energy and nutritional needs. Regular meal timing also helps to promote regular digestive patterns.
Meal Timing Recommendations
I recommend consuming something within two hours of waking up regardless of feeling hungry or not. Sometimes we fail to recognize hunger early in the mornings because the body ceases hunger cues overnight during its powered-down state. However, I strongly encourage you to try having something small. Once you have your first meal, depending on its content and balance, it’s recommended to have each subsequent meal every three to four hours to prevent dips in blood sugar levels (which can lead to feeling hangry). Meals should include a protein-rich food, high-fiber starches, vegetables, fruits, and fat.
There are various approaches to eating, and having a meal plan that makes you feel your best may not exactly suit someone else (and vice versa).
- 6:00 - 9:45 am: Break your fast. This window is the most recommended time to have breakfast.
- 10:00 - 11:00: Snack it up. Given breakfast has now been a few hours ago and lunch still feels light years away, I recommend having something light but with flavors and nutrients that are complimentary of one another, like an apple with peanut butter, a handful of nuts with some cheese, or whole grain crackers with deli meat. The high-fiber, high-protein combination is bound to curb hunger and cravings.
- 1:00 pm: Lunch Break. Research supports eating an earlier lunch. Those who eat lunch around 4:30 are found to have decreased glucose tolerance, which can lead to decreased memory function and impaired cognition, compared to those who have lunch at 1-2 pm.
- 3:00 - 4:00: Snack again.
- 6:30 pm: Dinnertime. It’s imperative to have a hearty, balanced dinner during the early evening. Research supports having dinner at 6-7 pm opposed to 10 pm increases usage of calories at rest. As the day progresses, the body begins to change its metabolism resulting in a decrease in the amount of energy that’s being used. Eating an earlier dinner and skipping late night (10 pm and after) meal can also help you sleep better. A dinner that is high in fiber (vegetables and complex carbs) and low in saturated fat can help you fall asleep faster and increase your time in dreamland.
If following the above schedule is incompatible with your schedule, at best try to consume a substantive meal every four hours, containing complex carbs like rice, potatoes, or grains; lean protein like eggs, chicken, beef, pork, tofu; and a vegetable, with water. Understanding the science behind meal timing could have a huge impact on your health, both physically and mentally. Some days we need to eat more often and bigger portions and other days we might find that we aren’t as hungry and that’s okay; simply adjust your portion sizes! Whatever you do, avoid skipping meals.