THURSDAY, July 16, 2026 (HealthDay News) — Higher levels of cholesterol and body fat are more likely in people who stay up late, new research reveals.
The study of 287 women in New Zealand found that “early birds” and “night owls” ate about the same amount of food each day, but it was when they ate that mattered.
“The research highlights that when people eat may be as important as what they eat,” said Rozanne Kruger, lead author of the study, professor and nutrition researcher at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia. “Centering mealtimes, especially reducing nocturnal eating, could be an important strategy to improve the health of people with nocturnal chronotype.”
Chronotypes define people’s daily sleep/wake patterns — like the early bird or the night owl.
The study participants were all women between the ages of 18 and 45, and Kruger’s team tracked their individual chronotypes, general health, and eating patterns.
People who went to bed later had unhealthy eating patterns, according to the researchers. Compared to early risers, night owls ate relatively less food in the morning (before 10 a.m.), but concentrated their intake of energy-rich foods during the afternoon and evening (between 8 and 3 a.m.).
The opposite pattern occurred with people who went to bed early, woke up early, according to the team.
As Kruger and his colleagues explained, eating at night (when people should ideally be sleeping) is hardest on the body. When faced with energy-dense food at night, the body stores it as fat instead of burning it.
So it was not surprising that the night owls in the study were more likely to have a higher percentage of body fat than the early risers, as well as greater volumes of belly fat.
Night eaters also tended to have higher levels of blood fats, such as cholesterol, according to the team.
Blood sugar regulation was also worse among night owl women compared to their fellow early risers.
“Chronotypes influence our food intake preferences, our behaviors, and our metabolism,” Kruger said in a news release. “Both morning and evening types consumed similar amounts of food or energy throughout the day, but what was crucial was the timing of the meal.”
The findings were recently published in Frontiers in Nutrition.
More information
There is more information about meal timing and weight management at Harvard Health.
SOURCE: Griffith University, press release, July 13, 2026
Source: Infobae
