A viral Instagram post claims that a Harvard study proves that skipping breakfast lengthens your life. This is false. We have verified the real scientific research behind this falsehood, which reveals very different conclusions.
The rumor is seductive: what if the secret to a longer life was to simply miss lunch (or breakfast, i.e. the first meal of the day)? This is what an Instagram post says, which has gone viral with more than 120,000 likes.
Available in several languages (German, Turkish, Portuguese, Spanish), it suggests organized disinformation. According to this post, a Harvard study, carried out over 22 years, proved that people who did not eat breakfast lived on average 4.5 years longer, with less diabetes and heart problems. This is false.
This “Harvard study” is a pure invention. As pointed out in his video dietitian Violette Babocsay, who analyzed the rumor, “there is no study conducted by Harvard over 22 years on people not eating breakfast and showing a difference in longevity.”
Conclusions contrary to the rumor
In fact, a recent study, co-authored by Harvard researchers, was published in the journal Communications Medicine in September 2025. Its conclusions are the opposite of the rumor.
This research followed almost 3,000 older people in the UK for more than 20 years. It reveals that eating lunch later is associated with a higher risk of mortality. Scientists even found that people with late breakfast habits had a lower 10-year survival rate (86.7%) than those who ate early (89.5%).
The real study doesn’t say that eating late kills. She suggests that a late lunch is often a symptom of a less healthy lifestyle or already present health problems (fatigue, depression, etc.), which are linked to increased mortality.
Scientists have in fact observed that late lunch is linked to various physical and psychological conditions: fatigue, oral and dental problems, depression and anxiety or multimorbidity (cumulative multiple illnesses). It is also associated with genetic profiles predisposing to an “evening” chronotype and poorer sleep quality.
In other words, it’s not eating late that makes you sick, but rather illness or a less healthy lifestyle that can lead to a late lunch. The study also specifies that “we can assume that the onset of the disease leads to changes in meal times rather than the reverse.”
Additionally, the study found no association between lunch or supper time, or the length of the eating window, and mortality. This contradicts the simplistic idea that “fewer meals = longer life”.
Helene Joaquim
