38% of Europeans no longer eat three meals a day | Hacker News Reader

38% of Europeans no longer eat three meals a day

euronews.com

31 pointsbelltaco18 comments

I think the title is poorly phrased and should be something along the lines of “38% of Europeans Feel They are Unable to Meet Their Calorific Requirements Due to Finances” to remove the debate as to whether or not we need 3 meals a day.

The reality is there is no hard and fast rule as to how many meals one should eat as we all have different lives and biological factors playing a role here.

The headline is that people feel they are not getting the sustenance they require because they simply cannot afford to, which is terribly sad.

In the author's defense, it is a bit unexpected that people would miss the point so much that they would turn it into a debate about how many daily meals you should have.

Since some people who have commented here seem to not think it is a big deal because they don't eat 3 meals a day. The article is saying this change is due to economic impacts, not for dieting/fasting/health purposes.

It's tone-deaf to be sure. But the assumption, only 3 meals is acceptable, is certainly debatable.

Not to say 'let them starve'. But folks decide to cut back on food instead of other things, let's look at the bigger picture. That's fair, right?

>It's tone-deaf to be sure. But the assumption, only 3 meals is acceptable, is certainly debatable

I'm not suggesting that only 3 meals is acceptable. I'm just saying if somebody wants 3 meals, which has been the standard for some time, and can't afford it, that is not good.

If somebody voluntarily cuts back on food that is fine. That is not what appears to be happening.

>Not to say 'let them starve'. But folks decide to cut back on food instead of other things, let's look at the bigger picture. That's fair, right?

Frankly, we don't know if they have also cut back on other things and food was the last to be cut back on. You are making an assumption that food was one of the first to be cut back on.

Look at these quotes from the article

>Other compromises include not turning heaters on, borrowing money and not treating a health problem in the face of the rising costs.

>21% of the parents surveyed said they have experience at least one instance of "not eating enough" in order to feed their offspring

I just think this may be similar to the 'think of the children!' argument. Seems like a slam-dunk. But everything is complicated.

In my student days I'd routinely miss a meal to make a class or see a movie or hang with friends. Didn't think anything of it.

Gotta be a big drag to have to ration food to your family. Not had to do that. Can imagine its more than a calorie thing - it's an emotional blow.

To me hearing 17% "at risk of" poverty but 38% not able to have 3 meals per day on a regular basis due to financial constraints is just confusing. I've always felt like poverty has too broad a coverage as a term. It can mean anything from not having the same amount of spending money as others in the region to borderline starvation.

I’ve not eaten three meals a day since I was about 8 years old. I eat one meal a day and if I’m hungry - which is rare - I’ll have something small mid afternoon, some bread dipped in oil and vinegar or an apple and cheese. I then eat late in the evening around 8pm.

I always hated breakfast.

I can only assume that most people who eat three meals a day have kids and so think they have to.

Many of us have high caloric needs, high metabolism and have to eat 3 meals a day.

This article is about people who would like to eat 3 meals but their financial situation prevents them. Many people don’t have the amount of food they need. That sounds pretty damn scary to me.

Not to diminish the point you're making about the financial situation, I don't see how most people nowadays have high caloric needs.

In fact I believe most people today have very small caloric needs. Definitely compared to the olden days, where a 4000+ calorie diet for a farm hand would totally be OK and nobody would get fat from that.

But even physically active people won't need that today. What most people have is cravings for sugary stuff and way too easy access to sugary stuff and they get fat and unhealthy from it (even if they stay lean because of their specific metabolism and not putting on the kilos but they might still be diabetic, have high cholesterol etc.)

You parent probably eats a diet that (costs more but) is skewed towards proteins and fats and fiber and more akin to a diet one might have found prior to us discovering cheap and easy ways to make sugar and mass produce grains and process them into dead white flour.

Personal anecdote to corroborate your parent's view (i.e. `anecdata+=1`): When I went full on Keto I could easily go for just one meal a day. I just wasn't hungry and the body used up my fat stores instead. It somehow learned over some time that it no longer had access to all that quick sugar and the cravings stopped. And when I did eat, it was lots of veggies, fat and protein and only incidental carbs from those veggies basically. On the other hand, when I came off Keto I immediately noticed again that if I do eat normal carb-y breakfast, I get hungry for lunch time again, while on Keto with nothing but a coffee w/ some butter or coconut oil in it, I wouldn't get any feeling of hunger during the entire day.

Now with that said, it's probably cheaper for people to eat a sugary 3 meal diet than to eat a healthy diet of lots of protein, fat and veggies, as that's even more expensive if you don't grow a lot of it in your own garden from heirloom seeds. And who's got the time (or garden) for that like grandma did.

The underlying variable here is meal size, not meal count. You can easily eat thousands of calories in a single meal every day given it's what your body is used to instead of 3 separate meals and it's often even cheaper to plan for (going so extreme with the freuqency isn't necessarily without downsides though). For simplicities' sake though let's make the assumption every one of this 38% not eating 3 meals a day are also actually eating that much less overall food each day. This seems to be more what the article is trying to assume anyways, so it's easier to talk about that way.

At this point the article still isn't quite claiming what you took from it. The 38% is the percentage that responded "regularly" or "sometimes" to the question "I no longer eat three meals a day". At the same time only 12% reported "being hungry but skipping a meal" in the last 6 months. The majority of that 38% aren't thinking they don't have the amount of food they need. While any % of the European population will be many people it's not necessarily the only thing the article contains. It's also worth noting here are subgroups with many people (e.g. parents) cutting how much they eat to feed their kids fully at uneasily high numbers though.

Sumo fighters eat a single meal a day. Without context and knowing how big are their other meals, it's pretty hard to make sense of these stats.

2 meals for me. I skip lunch since I feel so bloated if I eat it.

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