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I’ll be honest; I have an unpredictable eating pattern. I like to snack during the day, I don’t like to bother cooking anything and even skip meals until I’m so hungryI’m practically wild. Three meals a day is a rare victory.
I’m not alone. According to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, the percentage of people who eat three meals a day dropped significantly from the 1970s to 2010 (73% to 59% in men and 75% to 63% in women). I’d venture to guess that those numbers have dropped even more in the 12 years since that survey, as stress and burnout have reached fever pitch in recent years. An informal survey of my friends this year revealed that only 9 out of 25 eat three square meals a day.
Is it so important to have frequent meals? Why are two meals (or the popular OMAD) unsafe? And if it is so important, why is it so difficult? I spoke with a nutrition expert and dove into the research to find out. Here’s how my own eating habits changed for the better.
Three meals a day: an origin story
Although we now take it for granted, dividing your daily diet into three meals – breakfast, lunch and dinner – was not always the standardand it is still missing in some places in the world. Before industrialization, according to New York University food historian Amy Bentley Atlanticpeople in the US tended to eat only two large meals, fueling their bodies for outdoor farm work. In ancient Rome, the custom was to eat one big mealplus two small, light meals.
In the US, our eating habits are now usually organized around our work days or school days. But cultural norms aside, there’s no scientific reason to eat exactly three meals every day.
“The number of meals per day is not the key,” said Marissa Kai Miluk, a registered dietitian nutritionist who specialized in stopping overeating. “Every person is different and there is research on all ends of the spectrum of how many times a day you should eat.”
Over the years, there have been studies that show benefits from more frequent mealsas well as studies showing its shortcomings. Some research has also found the benefits of eating smaller, larger meals and—you guessed it—the downsides.
In addition, the recommendation of three meals a day did not come out of nowhere. In one sense, it all comes down to math: the average adult needs 2,000 calories a day, and you’re only awake for that many hours. “In all peer-reviewed research and health practices, three meals a day is the general recommendation to encourage consistent, adequate energy intake,” Miluk said. “Unless someone is severely short on time or food security, I wouldn’t recommend eating less than three meals a day, as that would require a large intake in one sitting to meet basic needs,” she added.
Still, the math can change depending on your health needs and schedule, not to mention a ton of other less quantifiable factors — like, in my case, a love of snacks.
More important than the number of meals, Miluk says, is consistency. Skipping meals, waiting all day to eat, and other inconsistent eating patterns can have a variety of unwanted outcomes, from elevated blood pressure to high or low blood sugar.
So how do you know if your eating patterns are healthy?
“Frequent mood swings, hangovers, erratic cravings, insatiable hunger, eating with a sense of urgency and overeating are common signs that you may need to reevaluate your eating patterns and relationship with food,” explained Miluk.
But eating regular meals is, somehow, a lot harder than it seems, at least for people like me.
Why is eating three meals a day so difficult?
Sometimes the choice to move away from the three-meal-a-day schedule is just that – a choice. But even if you want to eat the right breakfast, lunch and dinner every day, it can be challenging. You can’t always control when you get a moment to sit down and eat or what food options are available. Mental health and stress can also affect appetite.
Let’s call a spade a spade: eating is business. Preparing a meal requires physical and mental work, in addition to time and money. Even the discovery process what eating can feel like an insurmountable obstacle when you have a million other things on your mind. And that’s it before you’re taking into account the food culture, which makes mealtimes even more burdensome and stressful by equating thinness with health, and health with moral virtue. (If your goal is simply weight loss, meal timing and frequency involve a whole different kind of math.)
There is a lot of pressure to eat the “right” number and type of meals and we cook them all ourselves, using fresh, whole ingredients. On the budget. While working and taking care of loved ones. Easier said than done.
Sometimes it’s more convenient to… not do all that and just reach for a snack. While the number of people eating three meals a day has declined over the past few decades, people are eating more calories in total; we are still getting more of those snack calories now.
In some countries, it is relatively easy to get nutritious food – and this is the key – that you don’t have to cook yourself. Local food in Mexico and Ghana, for example, makes it easy to walk down the road and get a cheap, fully prepared (and delicious) meal made with local protein and produce, or a bunch of fresh local fruit. Not so in many places in the US.
However, the idea that you should cook all your meals yourself at home is a relatively recent phenomenon. Previously, only families who had the space for a home kitchen and the means to hire helped ate home-cooked meals every day. In the cities, working-class people ate cooked food from small restaurants and street vendors. Eating together is also a cherished tradition in many cultures, both in the US and around the world.
Three meals a day is not some magic number; it’s just a yardstick to help make sure you’re eating consistently enough — and modern life in this country makes that extremely difficult. So what can you do about it?
3 tips for 3 meals
First: Accept that the struggle to cook three meals at home every day is not a personal failing. But you don’t necessarily have to wait for sweeping changes across society to alleviate some of the frustration. Here are some tips that have helped me and may help you too.
Get back to basics
As you know by now, three meals a day is not the golden rule. But if you’re struggling to eat regular meals at all, Miluk told me she usually advises her clients to prioritize three meals a day in the first place.
“When your body doesn’t trust that food will be constantly available, it goes into fight-or-flight mode,” she explained. A daily meal schedule provides a “solid foundation” that allows you to rebuild confidence in your body and regulate your appetite.
That doesn’t mean it will be smooth sailing. I was used to accidentally skipping lunch or putting off dinner too long, and it didn’t just go away. But having a clear goal in mind was incredibly helpful. Every time I managed to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner, I learned what it’s like to enjoy life with consistent energy instead of brain fog and hangovers.
Practice non-judgment
Over the years, I tried a lot different ways to outwit myself and get in my three meals. But I can’t really say I succeeded until I finally gave up trying to always eat the “right” food, the “right” way. Instead, I focused on what was realistic and convenient for me: How can I get the nutrients I need, taking into account all the obstacles in my life?
If you remove any judgment about what your three meals consist of, you’ll be more likely to actually eat them. For me, that meant adding meal subscriptions and meal shakes to my daily routine. For others, it may mean grocery deliveries, meal prep help from your community, canned or prepared foods, food trucks, or inexpensive simple products (such as bananas).
Focusing not just on health, but lightness—even when that meant eating things I felt I “shouldn’t” be eating—changed everything for me. Every day I remind myself that I am worth all the money and effort it takes to feed myself. I forgive myself for living in a culture and era that doesn’t make it easy to nourish my body, and I commit to taking care of myself in whatever ways I have to in spite of it.
Check with yourself
Once you’ve settled down to eating three meals a day, according to Miluk, you can focus on tuning into your own body’s signals and using scale of hunger and satiety to maintain a diet schedule that suits you best. This means taking into account your food preferences, health needs and values, schedule and affordability. A professional dietitian can help guide you on this journey, but remember that there is no one-size-fits-all recipe for when and what to eat.
“The key to knowing the optimal meal time for you is to shut out the world around you and get honest with yourself,” Miluk said.
Her recommendation to figure this out is to ask yourself the following questions:
- How do I feel when I eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner consistently versus skipping meals?
- Do my meals and/or snacks last me until my next meal or snack?
- When I don’t have enough meals or snacks for long periods of time, do I notice any changes in my focus, energy, or mood?
- Do I pay attention to the signs from my body when I am hungry and when I am full?
- Are there any patterns in my appetite that stand out? Does my appetite stay steady throughout the day or do I find that I eat more at certain times of the day?
For me, it turns out that eating three meals a day is actually the most viable way to meet my daily needs while working a 9 to 5 job. Considering how often I get hungry and how much I like to eat in one sitting, it just makes sense. You may decide that living your best life means eating two huge meals like farmers used to do, or snacking from dawn to dusk. Some may be considered ‘pasture’ and there is nothing wrong with that,” Miluk assured me.
“That’s why trusting and adapting to your own body is more important than any diet or health manual,” she said. “A scientific study might say that eating 12 times a day is best for longevity, but who does that realistically apply to?”
