Q: I’ve heard that it’s bad for dinner to be your biggest meal of the day. Is that true?
The maxim has been around for decades: “Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper.” It’s not bad advice, experts say. It’s also the opposite of how most people in the United States eat, with dinner often being the largest meal of the day.
Marta Garaulet, a professor of physiology at the University of Murcia in Spain, spends several months a year in the United States. She has noticed that many Americans are often so busy that they don’t have time to eat a substantial meal until the evening. It’s a striking contrast to eating habits in Spain (and other European countries), where lunch is typically the largest meal. A traditional dinner is light, consisting of something like vegetable or fish soup, a slice of bread with cheese, and a salad.
Scientists are still untangling how meal size and timing might affect health. But they do know one thing: It’s probably best to avoid making dinner your largest meal, Dr. Garaulet said.
Why Meal Size and Timing Matter
For decades, nutrition researchers have focused on what — not when — people eat, so we don’t have many large or long-term studies on the influence of meal timing on health, said Nour Makarem, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.
But, she said, the studies that do exist show some consistent links. People who consume a greater percentage of calories in the evening tend to be at higher risk for obesity, Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and higher levels of inflammation.
Your body’s internal clock, which regulates how your cells function, may be at least partly to blame, said Frank A.J.L. Scheer, the director of the medical chronobiology program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.
In the morning, he said, your body is primed to handle a big meal. It is ready to absorb nutrients and distribute them to your cells to fuel the day’s activities. But gradually, as the day wears on, the organs that help you metabolize nutrients, like your liver and pancreas, start to respond more sluggishly.
Researchers see these effects most clearly in blood sugar levels. If you consume two identical meals, one in the morning and one in the evening, your blood sugar spike will be larger and will stay elevated for longer after the evening meal, Dr. Scheer said.
And when your levels of melatonin — a hormone that signals it’s time to sleep — rise an hour or two before bedtime, that suppresses insulin secretion from the pancreas, Dr. Garaulet said, making it harder for your body to regulate your blood sugar.
If your blood sugar is frequently elevated from large evening meals, Dr. Garaulet said, your risk of developing high blood pressure, chronic inflammation, obesity and Type 2 diabetes may rise.
Research also suggests that consuming large meals at night can increase the activity of certain metabolic pathways that lead to fat storage while you’re sleeping, Dr. Scheer said.
In fact, in a 2022 review of nine weight loss trials, researchers found that those who consumed the most calories at breakfast or lunch lost slightly more weight than those who consumed the most calories at dinner. They also had better insulin, glucose and LDL (or “bad”) cholesterol readings.
In another recent study, researchers found that people were less hungry throughout the day when their largest meal was breakfast than when it was dinner, said Alexandra Johnstone, a professor of nutrition at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland who led the study.
Advice From the Experts
Dinner doesn’t necessarily have to be your smallest meal of the day, Dr. Makarem said. But ideally it shouldn’t be the largest, and it’s best to avoid eating late into the evening. She suggested looking for small ways to consume more calories earlier in the day.
Start by prioritizing a nourishing breakfast, one that incorporates protein-rich and sating foods like Greek yogurt, eggs or beans, Dr. Johnstone said. People sometimes tell her that they’re not hungry in the morning, but that may be because they had a large dinner the night before, she said.
Also try to make time for a substantial lunch, Dr. Garaulet added. When dinner comes around, you’ll be less hungry and less likely to consume a bigger meal. And you may be less enticed by late-night snacks.
If you do find yourself ravenous at dinner or later in the evening, Dr. Makarem suggested steering clear of processed foods and those high in added sugars and sodium. Instead, prioritize lower calorie foods that will fill you up without spiking your blood sugar, like legumes, grilled fish, chicken breast, vegetables, fruits and whole grains.
