Late night eating in teens might be due to biological clocks

Every person has a different eating schedule, hence a different circadian rhythm. A circadian rhythm, also known as biological clock, is determined by a person’s habits, environment, and lifestyle. It is the way your organs, down to the cells that form each organ, prepare and function for specific times of the day. If one’s circadian rhythm is functioning to go to sleep around 10pm, the body starts adjusting itself to “sleep mode” in accordance.

This new study is forming bridges between a person’s biological clock and eating habits, with the focus on how it might begin during one’s teenage years. As the rhythm set during adolescence plays a significant part in forming the habits and biological clock in adulthood, it can play a vital role to influence life-long health status.

An experiment carried out with 51 teenagers

Researchers from Mass General Brigham and the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University combined efforts to carry out the study on 51 teens, specifically within the age group 12–18, separated to body mass index groups of: Healthy weight, overweight, and obesity. The main purpose of the study was to determine if the circadian rhythm impacts eating habits or not. The result was a direct correlation between the two. Teens who participated in the experiment were on the same fixed schedule to eat, socialize, and spend their days and evenings. The experiment showed that there is a significant relationship between their circadian rhythms determining when they eat (more), and the fixed time schedule determining their eating habits.

This result is of importance to observe how eating habits form in early stages of development, and how in result, causes certain health concerns or health stability.

What does this mean for late-night eaters?

When the teenagers who participated in the experiment faced a fixed schedule, their eating habits did adjust in accordance. However, there is a “paradox” in the schedule setting. Since, yes, there is an adjustment possible for one’s circadian rhythm (hence eating habits), but there is also a big determinator such as a natural tendency for one’s own rhythm. The biggest takeaway so far from the study is that there is a reason for having a “late-night eating habit” and it is linked closely to a person’s circadian rhythm.

This finding can help pave the way to combat obesity, development of cardiovascular diseases, eating disorders, and cancer. These diseases and disorders have roots in how a person develops during their vulnerable formative years, and researching further into nourishment subjects such as eating habits can provide valuable information to get ahead of such possible outcomes.