Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
Indians are increasingly eating well beyond the traditional dinner hour. Food delivery data suggests late-night meals are becoming a distinct consumption pattern rather than an occasional indulgence.
Data collected over the past year in the ‘How India Eats’ report, by food-delivery platform Swiggy and consulting firm Kearney, found that late-night meals are growing at nearly three times the rate of dinner orders. The fastest-growing foods consumed after 11 pm are pizzas, cakes and soft drinks, pointing to a preference for relatively heavy, high-fat, high-sugar foods at a time when the body is preparing for sleep.
advertisement
The trend has become substantial enough for Swiggy to launch a dedicated Late Night Eats programme in July 2026 for people working extended hours. It operates between 10 pm and 5 am across more than 4,000 office locations and 30,000 restaurants in 30 cities. Swiggy says more than a third of restaurants serving these office locations now accept orders between 10 pm and 6 am.
The health consequences can begin with something as commonplace as indigestion, but many of the latent dangers are graver. Dr Sudeep Bathia, a pulmonologist in Noida, says that in many patients, disturbed sleep coincides with heavy eating late at night. “I get so many patients who have sleep issues because they are eating so much at night. They develop digestive trouble after that, and then are unable to sleep properly,” he says.
The link between digestive problems and sleep is supported by medical research. A 2026 systematic review and meta-analysis of 18 studies involving more than 110,000 individuals found a significant association between gastroesophageal reflux disease and sleep disorders. Eating shortly before lying down can be particularly troublesome for people prone to acidity or reflux.
Late eating may have metabolic effects as well. A study published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism compared a 6 pm dinner with the same meal eaten at 10 pm in healthy adults. The late dinner produced higher overnight glucose levels and reduced the oxidation of dietary fat. The researchers concluded that repeatedly eating late could potentially have adverse metabolic consequences over time.
Another study, published in the journal Obesity, shifted meal times four hours later and found that delayed eating altered the way the body processed nutrients, producing greater carbohydrate oxidation and lower fat oxidation after evening meals.
For people whose work or lifestyle makes a late dinner unavoidable, Bathia recommends changing the meal rather than skipping it altogether. “If you have to eat late, have something light,” he says. “A soup or some other light, easily digestible food is much better than eating a large or heavy meal at night.”
But with pizzas, cakes and soft drinks among the foods showing the fastest growth after 11 pm, the concern is not simply that Indians are eating later. It is also what they are eating just before going to bed.
Subscribe to India Today Magazine
– Ends
SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
