“Eating dinner three hours before you go to bed is ideal for digestion, repair and better-quality sleep,” Hope explains. “Breaking your ‘fast’ in the morning can also reduce cortisol, your stress hormone, and support your thyroid.”

Of course, it’s important to remember that everyone is different, so eating to a certain schedule won’t work for everyone. “Everyone’s bodies work in different ways and everyone also has very personal relationships to food,” Neve says.

For people with a history of disordered eating, like issues with binge-eating or anorexia, regular meal times can be very helpful, according to Neve, in order to bring some structure to the way you eat. However, she continues to explain, if you haven’t struggled with disordered eating, you may have a better sense of when you’re hungry and you can therefore be more flexible with your mealtimes.

Most of us have grown up eating three meals per day but with trends like intermittent fasting becoming more popular, this isn’t necessarily the case for everyone now. Neve says that, again, the number of meals you want to eat comes down to individual preference and if you feel hungrier for five or six smaller meals, that might not necessarily be a problem as long as they’re regular and evenly spaced out. However, she does stress that if you struggle with gut health issues, it’s really important to leave enough space between each of your meals.

Should you eat your meals at the same times every day?