The quality and timing of snacks are more important for health than quantity or frequency, a new study suggests.
The impact of snacking on our health is a subject of hot debate. Is it the number of snacks, the quality of what we're nibbling on, or the time of day that matters the most?
The study, presented at NUTRITION 2023 in Boston and led by Dr Kate Bermingham, a postdoctoral fellow at King's College London, involved over a thousand participants and suggests the answers are more nuanced than previously thought.
More than 70 per cent of people report snacking at least twice daily, which makes understanding the health implications crucial.
“Our study revealed that snack quality and timing seem to carry more weight than quantity or frequency when it comes to health,” said Dr Bermingham.
The research is part of the ZOE PREDICT project, a series of nutritional studies aiming to understand why people respond differently to the same foods.
The investigation specifically targeted snacking behaviours, a dietary aspect often overlooked despite accounting for 20-25 per cent of energy intake.
The researchers examined links between snacking habits – quality, quantity and timing – with cardiometabolic health, as indicated by blood fats and insulin levels.
Contrary to common belief, the study found no direct association between the frequency or the amount of food consumed during snacking and any of the health measures analysed.
However, the findings did highlight that the quality of snacks plays a significant role in influencing health outcomes.
Snacks rich in nutrients relative to their calorie content were associated with better blood fat and insulin responses.
The timing of snacking also emerged as a crucial factor.
Late-night snacking, which extends the eating window and cuts short the fasting period, was linked with less favourable blood glucose and lipid levels – the amount of fatty substances present in your blood.
“Our research emphasises the importance of both the timing and quality of snacks, showing that these are independent, modifiable dietary features that could be targeted to improve health,” Dr Bermingham saidd.
Participants who consumed high-quality snacks and avoided late-night snacking showed better triglyceride and insulin levels, implying potential benefits for cardiometabolic health.
Conversely, late-night snacking was associated with negative impacts blood sugar levels.
The findings indicate that while poor quality and late-night snacking can pose risks to cardiometabolic health, consuming high-quality snacks might offer health benefits.
Both the quality and timing of snacking can serve as key dietary factors for promoting better health outcomes.
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
The years Ramadan fell in May
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High profile Al Shabab attacks
- 2010: A restaurant attack in Kampala Uganda kills 74 people watching a Fifa World Cup final football match.
- 2013: The Westgate shopping mall attack, 62 civilians, five Kenyan soldiers and four gunmen are killed.
- 2014: A series of bombings and shootings across Kenya sees scores of civilians killed.
- 2015: Four gunmen attack Garissa University College in northeastern Kenya and take over 700 students hostage, killing those who identified as Christian; 148 die and 79 more are injured.
- 2016: An attack on a Kenyan military base in El Adde Somalia kills 180 soldiers.
- 2017: A suicide truck bombing outside the Safari Hotel in Mogadishu kills 587 people and destroys several city blocks, making it the deadliest attack by the group and the worst in Somalia’s history.
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
