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Fractional meals and physical activity help keep weight in check, study says
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
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Overweight adults eat less frequently than those of normal weight but still consume more calories and are less active during the day, according to a US study.
People of normal weight, including those who have lost weight and kept it off, eat more often, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.
"A large body of research shows that people who eat more frequently tend to have lower weights. But no one knows why," said lead researcher Jessica Bachman, an assistant professor of nutrition and dietetics at the University of Marywood Scranton in the US. "More than 60% of people in the US are obese or overweight, but the relationship between the number of meals we eat and our ability to maintain weight remains unclear. In particular, what people who have lost a significant amount of weight do to keep it off."
Bachman and her colleagues followed 250 people for a year, analyzing data collected from two large studies sponsored by the National Institutes of Health.
In the first study, researchers looked at the eating habits of people with a body mass index of 25 to 47, which is considered overweight.
In the second study, researchers followed adult men and women who were of normal weight with a BMI of 19-24.9, about half of whom lost 13 kg and maintained it for more than five years.
It turned out that people of normal weight ate three times a day with two snacks, while the overweight group ate three times a day with one snack.
People of normal weight consumed the fewest calories, about 1,800 per day, compared with overweight people who consumed more than 2,000 calories per day.
Bachman said eating small amounts of food between meals can help prevent weight gain by preventing intense feelings of hunger.
"If you eat more often, it prevents you from getting hungry. If you don't eat for 10 hours, you end up eating a lot more food," she added.
She noted that people trying to lose weight were the most physically active, burning about 3,000 calories a week through exercise and other activities, compared with 2,000 calories a week among normal-weight people and 800 calories a week in the overweight group.
It seems that people who have already lost weight maintain their weight through physical activity and eating small meals.
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