It depends on who you ask! But for a balanced opinion on the matter, let’s consider both sides of the matter.
Opinion 1
As long as the number of calories you eat in a day is not more than the calories you burn, eating late won’t cause you to gain weight. The same meal has the same calories at 10 p.m. as it does at 6 p.m.
One problem that nighttime eating poses is the tendency to snack rather than sitting down for regular meals — and lots of snack foods are low on nutrition but high in calories. Snack foods – like biscuits, ice cream, soft drinks, chips – also make for mindless eating. It’s easy to sit down in front of the TV with a large bag of chips planning to enjoy “just a few,” and the next thing you know you are scraping up the crumbs and salt at the bottom of the bag (think Cheese Balls, though it’s technically a crisp, but you get the drift).
In short, there’s nothing wrong with sitting down to a normal family dinner a bit on the late side. But you might want to avoid post-dinner snacks — or if you get hungry, reach for something healthy, like fruit. That way there’s less of a chance that the foods you eat will put you over your daily calorie limit.
Opinion 2
Because your body uses less sugar as fuel when you are lying in bed as opposed to running around, potentially more sugar winds up in your fat cells when you eat those foods late at night. Eating – especially a large meal – late at night also increases your risk of heartburn.
Oesophageal reflux commonly occurs when our stomachs are full and we lie down, allowing the stomach contents to reflux into the oesophagus causing discomfort and affecting sleep
It is usually recommend that individuals stop eating approximately 1.5 to 2 hours before going to bed to allow for digestion. Since we digest our food better when we are upright, this allows our body to truly rest and repair while we are sleeping in preparation for the next day.
Still, even if it’s late at night, if an individual is hungry, he or she should eat. It’s important to listen to our body’s hunger cues at all times. Because going hungry will set you up for low blood sugar levels, intense cravings and heavy eating once you finally do eat (don’t we know it!).
If that’s you, fight the urge to reach for high-fat, high-sugar snacks. Reach for healthy alternatives like fruits and vegetables instead.
From both opinions, it figures that if we MUST eat at night, we should ensure it’s light – to prevent indigestion and oesophagal reflux -, and healthy – because it’s essentially better than junk -. And that’s it.
