Association between irregular meal timing and the mental health of Japanese workers

As part of this 2021 study, a questionnaire survey was distributed to 4490 workers in Japan to determine the relationship between meal habits, health, and social relationships. Tahara et al. found that irregular meal timing was associated with higher neuroticism, lower physical activity levels, and greater productivity loss. Irregular meal timing was also linked with higher prevalence of sleeping problems and poorer subjective health conditions. Among all health outcomes, there was a high correlation between irregular meal timing with mental health factors. Furthermore, there were links between irregularity of meal timing with unbalanced diets, frequent breakfast skipping, increased snacking frequency, and not leaving enough time between the last meal and sleep. Overall, these results suggest that irregular meal timing is a good marker of subjective mental health issues. [NPID: irregular meal timing, mental health, Japanese, workers, chrononutrition, sleep, nutrition, circadian clock]

Year: 2021

Reference: Tahara, Y., Makino, S., Suiko, T., Nagamori, Y., Iwai, T., Aono, M., & Shibata, S. (2021). Association between Irregular Meal Timing and the Mental Health of Japanese Workers. Nutrients, 13(8), 2775. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu13082775