Overweight people eat fewer meals

Normal weight adults, including those who had lost a lot of weight and kept it off, ate more often than overweight people in a new study looking at factors that may help in preventing weight gain.

Normal weight adults, including those who had lost a lot of weight and kept it off, ate more often than overweight people in a new study looking at factors that may help in preventing weight gain.

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Researchers following about 250 people for a year found overweight individuals ate fewer snacks in addition to meals than people in the normal body weight range, but the overweight still took in more calories and they were less active over the course of the day.

"Most of the research has shown that people who eat more frequently have a lower weight," said lead researcher Jessica Bachman, assistant professor in the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics at Marywood University in Scranton, Pennsylvania. "But no one knows why."

In particular, Bachman told Reuters Health, she wanted to understand what people who have lost significant amounts of weight do to maintain their weight loss, as a first step to helping guide others in losing weight and keeping it off.More than 60% of Americans are obese or overweight, but the relationship between the number of meals people eat each day and the ability to maintain weight loss has remained unclear, she said.

Other study looked at adult humans who were normal weight, about half of whom had lost at least 30 pounds and maintained their lower weight for more than 5 years.

The researchers found that, on average, the normal weight subjects ate three meals and a little over two snacks each day, whereas the overweight group averaged three meals.