How Skipping Meals Is Unhealthy

Majority of people tend to skip their meals, giving various excuses. Some people skip their meals occasionally but some people skip their meals regularly thinking that if they eat fewer meals, they’ll take in fewer total calories and lose weight more successfully. Although skipping a meal on rare occasions is harmless, skipping meals often does have negative health effects. Skipping meals regularly have long-term effects on the body and even contribute to the development of some chronic conditions. By skipping meals, you don’t get any closer in developing a healthy-looking body. In fact, doing it might make it even harder for you to get rid of the extra weight.

Effects Of Skipping Meals On Health

The effects of skipping meals on health is explained below:

1. Weight Gain

• When you don’t eat for a long, it turns the hunger to craving. In this situation, the spicy, peppery, frozen, oily and fried eatables attract more. Craving leads to overeating and insensible eating. This leads to more calorie intake, which boosts weight gain.

2. Lowers Nutritional Levels

• Cutting back on meals means cutting back on opportunities to consume adequate amounts of the vitamins, minerals, protein, and essential fatty acids our bodies need in a day. These dietary components are vital to many body processes such as growth and development, disease prevention and overall well-being.

3. Drop In Blood sugar levels

• When you skip a meal, you don’t supply your body with the fuel it runs on. Consequently, your blood sugar levels drop and the body experiences a shortage of energy.
• Sticking to a healthy eating routine can become much more difficult when you skipped your last meal. So you start craving unhealthy snacks just to bring those sugar levels up.
• When your sugar levels drastically fluctuate between highs and lows, your dieting efforts get seriously compromised. Also, insulin – the hormone that regulates glucose levels – gets disturbed. There is a chance that you are contributing to the development of diabetes later in life.
• The drop in blood sugar level due to skipping meal makes your body releasing hormones to compensate for low glucose level. It causes an increase in blood pressure and affects the arteries, making them narrow. 

4. Impairs Concentration

• Glucose, which your body obtains by breaking down nutrients in the food you eat, is the primary source of energy for your brain and central nervous system. When you fast for several hours or more, the supply of glucose to your brain dwindles.
• Within four to six hours of your last food intake, the brain starts experiencing a fuel shortage, you become tired, sluggish, moody and irritable and your cognitive functions are affected, and you might have difficulty with attention, memory, concentration and general mental performance.

5. Slows The Metabolism

• When you skip meals, your metabolism slows down. As a result, the food transforms into fat more readily and gets deposited in all the places you don’t want it to be.
• When your body enters into starvation mode, it looks for new sources of energy. Your metabolism starts transforming fat into energy. This might sound like a good plan, but can have health consequences that include nausea, constipation, fatigue, kidney stress, low blood pressure. fat more readily and gets deposited in all the places you don’t want it to be.

6. Miss Your Exercise Session

• When you are physically and mentally feeling unwell, this affects all other areas of your life. Like you might want to give your exercise session a miss, because you’re simply not feeling energetic enough to do it. Or, you start craving unhealthy snacks just to bring those sugar levels up.
• Even if you push through your fatigue and hit the gym, skipping a meal can leave you feeling terrible through your session.

7. GERD, Gas, Bloating

• The digestive juice is responsible for proper functioning of digestive tract. They work in form of digestive enzymes and from chewing process, they kick-start to perform their action. Missing meals not only causes lack of nutrition, but also decrease the formation rate of digestive enzymes. Their insufficient quantity results to poor digestion, triggering gas and bloating.  
• Gastro-colic reflex also causes irritable bowel syndrome or diarrhea.

8. Bad Breath or Chronic Breath

• When you skip meals regularly, the chemical reaction of ketoacidosis starts. In this, the body chemicals break down and develop an unpleasant, odd fruity odor.
• Empty stomach reduces the amount of saliva production. Saliva helps to flush away the unwanted bacteria in tongue, gums and teeth; less formation of saliva leads to dry mouth, which results in bad breath.

Conclusion

Skipping meals sets your body for a slower metabolism and crazy hunger pangs that are tough to resist. Lose weight by eating smaller, healthier meals throughout the day. Make sure to eat high-quality, nutrient-rich food: lean protein combined with carbs from whole grains and some monounsaturated good fats. Ramp up your workouts so you burn more calories, as well. In order to maintain a healthy lifestyle and set your body up to succeed, focusing on consuming more nutritious, well-rounded meals is necessary for overall health.