How long can waiting to eat be healthy?

for example if you wake or get hungry 2-3 hours before you can eat breakfast or each meal, sometimes 9-12 if hungry when sleepy, Not necessarily daily but for weeks maybe indefinitely at a time I used to be fast seeking food when hunger came, but the unfulfilled hunger feeling feels a bit good, not bad. Sometimes correlates with more vulnerability to emotional flooding, but when it doesn't the feeling doesn't feel like a big deal, just weird to be hungry and not eat. Is eating promptly or not feeling hungry too pressured in some cultures? what influenced me to wait was also abusey, so what's more healthy or what are the consequences of each, like waiting and its vulnerabilities or not waiting and its possibilities?

Answer

Healthy is rather relative in regards to ‘fasting’. Some say fasting can be really healthy while others say it isn’t.

While hydrating, a human can last pretty long without food. The first things our body uses are excess fats but once you run out of those your body starts breaking down organs and muscles.

To bring it back to your question, a couple of hours is in no means unhealthy. Personally I enjoy intermitten fasting and can go for 14-16 hours a day without meals. If anything these interfals make me (atleast feel) more healthy.

Edit: as this subreddit asks for substantiation on claims. I hope I was clear in not making any claims. And as it’s not very ethical to study starving people, there is not a lot of research.

Answer

Hunger is ok. We largely train ourselves to respond to hunger right away, if you maintain a healthy caloric intake there is absolutely no harm from it.

There are lots of cultures where people eat many small meals a day. There are many cultures where people eat one meal a day. Historically English people ate between 2 and 5 meals a day at various points in history, 2 was very common until fairly recently.

Answer

As long as the hunger doesn’t lead you to overeat or binge in response, it isn’t a problem if it’s just a few hours. But it sounds like there may be some emotional issues here related to eating and not eating, and that might be an indicator of disordered eating.