Everyone’s heard the platitude that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. But dinner matters, too. It’s the last major meal of the day, but for many people, dinner is the first thing that falls off their to-do list when schedules fill up with evening errands, events, and activities.

Going without dinner can happen by accident when lunch leaves you feeling full well past dinnertime. And there are those who intentionally skip dinner because they’re sticking to a time-restricted eating window that ends midafternoon or practicing intermittent fasting, a trendy diet that calls for fasting during set hours that often overlap with dinnertime.

But whether the missed meal is a diet strategy or occasional happenstance, what does skipping dinner do to your body? We looked at the research and asked a nutrition expert to find out.

The Importance of Dinner

Dinner is not just a third daily meal. It’s also the last opportunity of the day to give your body the calories and nutrition it needs to thrive before you go to sleep, which for most people, is the longest stretch in 24 hours they go without food. It’s also a nightly occasion to connect with loved ones. The benefits of family meals have been studied for decades, and eating dinner together has been shown to improve academic performance, improve nutrition, and decrease obesity in children, according to a report published in February 2021 by the American College of Pediatricians.

Dinner is also the time of day when people make an effort to eat their vegetables, according to an article published in January 2020 by the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT). The 9 out of 10 Americans who don’t get the recommended amount of produce, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, can’t afford to miss that opportunity. Adults reported consuming more calories at dinnertime than at any other meal, according to data published in the Scientific Report of the 2020 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee.

The timing of the evening meal varies considerably among households. Americans eat dinner anywhere between 5:07 p.m. and 8:19 p.m. according to an infographic based on data from the American Time Use Survey. Peak dinnertime is 6:19 p.m. Where Americans eat is more consistent: 8 of 10 dinners are eaten at home, according to the IFT. What’s on the menu varies, but there are familiar themes. For example, 70 percent of millennials say that chicken is typical of their weeknight meals.

The past few years have changed how people think about dinner, however. According to a study commissioned by integrated marketing firm Hunter PR, 54 percent of Americans cook more often than they did before the COVID-19 pandemic. On the other hand, intermittent fasting has taken over as the most popular diet, with 1 in 10 people participating in it, according to the 2018 Food & Health Survey by Food Insight. With all those people skipping meals, dinner may also be happening less than it used to. But overall, a majority of Americans, 64 percent, eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

What Happens When You Skip Dinner?

Whenever you eat — or don’t eat — it triggers a series of reactions in your body. Even small shifts in regular mealtimes can impair your ability to regulate your appetite because varying a daily eating routine disrupts circadian rhythms, the 24-hour cycle that governs many bodily functions, according to a review published in August 2021 in the journal Current Opinion in Biotechnology.

Over the long term, skipping meals regularly can have a negative impact on your health. Eating just one meal a day was linked to a higher mortality risk, and skipping lunch or dinner specifically increased the risk of cardiovascular disease, according to a study published in March 2023 in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

In the short term, skipping dinner can lead to fluctuations in blood sugar that can leave you feeling shaky or lacking energy. “It can make your body feel more stressed. It can make it harder to sleep,” says Lena Beal, RDN, a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. For people with diabetes, episodes of high or low blood sugar brought on by skipping can be dangerous, according to the Cleveland Clinic.

Those without diabetes or other health problems should be able to get away with skipping dinner once in a while without any negative consequences. It may even be better to skip dinner if you haven’t had an evening meal and it’s gotten late. “I recommend cutting off eating two hours before bedtime,” says Beal.

There are research-backed reasons for that advice. Late-night eating can lead to increased hunger and decreased leptin, a hormone that signals fullness, and may raise your risk for obesity, according to a study published in October 2022 in the journal Cell Metabolism.

As a general rule, Beal suggests eating something at your usual dinnertime, even if you’re full from a big or late lunch, to keep your body on schedule. “Have a light dinner of a little canned tuna and crackers instead of a full dinner,” she suggests.

Skipping meals can also do a number on your mental health. Older adults who skipped meals were more likely to experience depression, anxiety, and insomnia symptoms than those who didn't, according to a study published in 2020 in the journal Innovation in Aging.

Can Skipping Dinner Help With Weight Loss?

Eliminating meals can seem like a shortcut to dropping a few pounds. “It’s possible that skipping dinner can result in weight loss. It’s all about calories,” says Beal. “Eat less than you burn and you will lose weight.” And skipping a meal will shave between 252 calories and 350 calories off a person’s daily energy intake on average, according to USDA data.

Over time, though, skipping dinner isn’t a good strategy for weight loss. In fact, skipping dinner was the biggest predictor of weight gain in a study published in January 2021 in the journal Nutrients. Even worse, passing up breakfast, lunch, or dinner may also make you more vulnerable to developing an eating disorder, according to a study published in April 2022 in the journal Eating and Weight Disorders.

A better approach could be eating more calories at breakfast and lunch, then taking in fewer at dinner, making it the lightest meal of the day. People who front-loaded their calories that way lost more weight, according to a systematic review.

Should You Skip Dinner?

Skipping dinner because you had a late lunch or happy hour snacks, or didn’t get a chance to eat until it’s practically bedtime, is fine as long as it’s infrequent, says Beal.

And for some people, dinner as it’s usually thought of — the main meal of the day shared with others around 6:30 p.m. — doesn’t make sense. “For example, shift workers may want to stick to a two-meal-a-day schedule, with the last meal in the later afternoon,” says Beal. People who want to experiment with intermittent fasting could also give this way of eating a try.

“When you eliminate meals, you limit your opportunities to get the energy and nutrition you need, so the meals you do eat have to be well planned,” says Beal. She recommends consulting with a registered dietitian to make sure a two-meal-a-day or intermittent fasting program is adequate to cover your nutritional needs. And if you’re skipping dinner regularly to accommodate shift work, a restricted eating window, or any other reason, don’t skip any other meals.

Summary

There’s a reason the idea of three square meals a day is so entrenched. Americans who eat three meals per day benefit from a higher-quality diet than those who skip a meal, according to research. But if you find yourself needing to skip a meal on occasion, skipping dinner will compromise your diet’s quality less than skipping breakfast or lunch, according to the USDA. Just don’t make it a habit, advises Beal.