Which is healthier: eating fewer, large meals or lots of small meals?

A lot of people think you should eat breakfast, lunch, then dinner – and that’s it. They certainly don’t believe in snacking between meals, as the body wouldn’t have time to digest food properly. If you take a closer look at people’s eating habits in the past or in different cultures, it quickly becomes apparent that there’s no clear-cut standard when it comes to scheduling meals. In Ancient Rome, for instance, it was customary to eat just one large meal in the afternoon, while eating frequently was considered unhealthy. These days, researchers are looking at the timing of our daily meals from a new perspective. Namely, that eating more frequent, smaller meals could protect against chronic disease. So, what’s actually right?

Research on the benefits of eating frequently

Proponents of eating frequent meals argue that it makes you feel more satiated, stabilises blood sugar levels and, as a result, lowers the risk of diabetes. They also say that it helps avoid food cravings. A study conducted in 2019, for example, found that people who ate more than four meals a day had higher HDL cholesterol levels. HDL cholesterol, also known as «good» cholesterol, can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.

No clear evidence when it comes to weight loss and metabolism

When it comes to weight loss, the research results are anything but definitive. One study, for example, compared eating three large meals a day to eating six smaller ones. It concluded that the groups didn’t differ in terms of energy consumption or fat loss. However, it did turn out to have another kind of impact. The study participants who ate six meals a day were hungrier than the group who ate three meals, despite consuming just as many calories. This contradicts the widespread assumption that eating more often gets hunger pangs under control.

Meanwhile, another observational study showed that eating less frequent meals was more likely to protect against obesity in the long term. Only, however, if other rules were observed. Participants in that study had to leave a gap of several hours between breakfast and lunch, with breakfast being their largest meal of the day. They were forbidden from snacking, and their overnight fast had to last a total of 18–19 hours.

Verdict: find your own rhythm

When you take a closer look at the specialist literature, the sobering conclusion is that science hasn’t yet provided any definitive evidence that one meal schedule is better than the other. Although there are recommendations for certain groups, such as athletes, who can improve their performance by eating more frequent meals with sufficient protein, there’s no one-size-fits-all advice. If you’re keen to back one side in the debate over the other, you’ll find evidence to support either argument in individual scientific studies. However, there isn’t yet a clear, science-backed recommendation for one particular way of eating.

Whether you decide to eat small, more frequent meals or fewer, larger meals depends on your personal preferences, lifestyle and health. Quality counts for more than quality, so it’s more important to question what you’re eating as opposed to how often. You see, regardless of whether you eat three meals a day or six, studies show that people who eat at least three tend to have a better quality diet. They eat more vegetables, fruit, wholegrain products and dairy products.