The study entitled, “Skipping Breakfast is Correlated with Obesity,” as the name suggests, sought to see whether there was any correlation between the timing of meals and weight gain on Japanese people. The research was conducted using several data set and analysis techniques. Researchers obtained data from 766 residents of Toon City, all of whom were aged between 30 and 79. Between 2011 and 2013, these participants underwent rigorous medical examinations. The first medical examination included physical measurements, such as height, weight, blood pressure, and BMI. There were also several questionnaires: one on lifestyle (for ex., whether they exercised), food frequency, meal timing (whether or not the participant followed a strict pattern of eating meals), and METs (which are units representing the intensity of physical activity). Several statistical tests were performed as well, such as the chi-squared and ANOVA tests to compare the results. Their results were then tabulated. The results showed that the BMI and waist circumference were larger for subjects who ate dinner less than 3 hours before going to be bed than those who ate dinner more than 3 hours before going to bed. Also, the multiple linear regression analysis showed that skipping breakfast affected BMI and waist circumference, while eating dinner less than 3 hours before bedtime influenced BMI only. Lastly, the chi-squared test revealed that there was a statistical difference in eating habits between those who ate dinner less than 3 hrs and more than 3 hours before bedtime.
Watanabe, Yoko, et al. “Skipping Breakfast Is Correlated with Obesity.” Journal of Rural Medicine, vol. 9, no. 2, 2014, pp. 51–58., doi:10.2185/jrm.2887. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4310153/
