Eating late can lead to weight gain - new research explains why It has long been popular advice for those who want to lose weight to avoid eating dinner. It is not surprising, with many studies showing that eating dinner is associated with higher body weight and the risk of obesity. But so far, few studies have investigated exactly why eating dinner is associated with higher body weight. This is what American researchers recently tried to find out. They found that eating four hours later than usual altered several physiological and molecular pathways that promote weight gain. This work adds to other recently published work showing that eating early is beneficial for controlling appetite and weight. Research process: To conduct their study, the researchers asked 16 participants to follow two different diets, each for a total of six days. The first method asked the participants to eat their meal early in the morning, with the last meal eaten about six ...