This is not new. We know the Japanese way of drinking or sipping tea while they eat, but why could we not do this?
Obesity has become a worldwide "pandemic". Factors include not eating a balanced diet and lack of exercise, but the most one we should consider serious is lack of sleep or this abnormal sleeping pattern. We tend to eat our midnight snack when hunger strikes.
And yet, we have to work. Many of us work night shift, so there is a greater tendency we eat at midnight or during the inactive hours of our body.
Night time until dawn is when the body should be replenishing and should be flushing out the toxins accumulated in it.
Furthermore, since we sleep during the day, we find no time for exercise, so there is a big chance to develop this mild to severe obesity.