Linking morningness with healthy eating behaviors: the mediating role of time perspectives

ABSTRACT

Several studies provide evidence for a positive association between morning preference and health behaviors. However, little is known about actual mechanisms that underpin this relationship. Recent research showed that both diurnal preferences and health behaviors are associated with individual differences in temporal framing of own experience, referred to as time perspectives. The aim of the current study was to investigate the mediating role of time perspectives in the link between chronotype and healthy eating habits. Three hundred and ten individuals aged 18–37 years took part in the study. Consistent with our main hypothesis, a multiple mediation analysis showed that Future-Positive and Present-Fatalistic time perspectives partially mediated the association between morningness-eveningness and healthy eating habits. However, contrary to our predictions, the association between healthy eating habits and BMI was positive, and no significant association between chronotype and BMI was found. These results were inconsistent with previous studies. In conclusion, the present study provides a novel insight into the nature of the relationship between chronotype and healthy eating habits. However, given that the obtained mediation effect was only partial, further studies testing mediation models including other potential mediators are still required to better understand the origins of this association.

KEYWORDS:

• Chronotype
• morningness-eveningness
• health behaviors
• eating habits
• time perspective

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science Center (Poland) under [Grant no. 2014/13/D/HS6/02951].