School of Medicine
50 A Descriptive Analysis of Night Eating Behaviors and Circadian Timing
Mohammad Alrayess
Faculty Mentor: Kelly Baron (Family and Preventive Medicine, University of Utah)
Abstract
Objective: Eating during the biological night is associated with poorer metabolic health. The goal of this study is to examine habitual night eating, eating behaviors in a standardized laboratory task and circadian timing in an ongoing study of circadian
rhythms and eating behaviors.
Methods: Data are derived from a larger ongoing study that focuses on sleep, circadian timing and risk factors for type 2 diabetes. Participants completed self-report questionnaires to assess habitual frequency of night eating and actigraphy to measure sleep. Eating behaviors at night were measured using an eating in the absence of hunger task administered at 21:00. Circadian timing was determined by dim light melatonin onset (DLMO). Metabolic assessments included BMI. This study presents descriptive analyses.
Results: Participants seem to consume more calories of sweet foods compared to neutral foods which seems to correspond with previous studies. Additionally, it seems that participants are able to report their night eating behavior, but are uncomfortable labeling themselves as “night eaters”.
Conclusion: This descriptive analysis possibly provides a useful insight on how prevalent night eating might be and the possible eating behaviors during a laboratory task. In the future, analysis of the relationship between DLMO and eating behaviors will be examined.
INTRODUCTION
Obesity in America has been increasing at an alarming rate for many years. Studies show that around 41.9% of Americans are considered to be obese with 9.2% of them being severely obese (Fryar et al., 2020). Many complications can arise due to obesity which include heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and some cancers (Fryar et al., 2020). Current recommendations largely focus on diet and physical activity to manage obesity risk (CDC, 2020). A growing area specifically is studying the timing of eating throughout an individual’s day. Recently, research has started to focus on late night eating as there might be a potential physiological mechanism which contributes to an increase risk of obesity.
Night eating is considered to be a delayed timing of an individual’s meal time which is typically their evening meal (Martinez-Lozano et al., 2020). Identifying whether an individual has night eating behaviors is defined differently across studies, however, several studies define night eating as more than 25% of daily caloric intake after one’s evening meal (Tholin et al., 2009). Studies show that night eating seems to be fairly prevalent among adults. One study observed that the prevalence among nonobese men and women seem to be around 4.6% and 3.4% respectively compared to an increase in prevalence among obese men and women with numbers around 8.4% and 7.5% (Tholin et al., 2009). Many issues could arise with