Snacking Increases Belly Fat More So Than Overeating at Meals. Researchers from The Netherlands found that snacking on high-fat and high-sugar foods was independently associated with abdominal fat and fatty liver. The study published in Hepatology, a journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, provides the first evidence that eating more often, rather than consuming large meals, contributes to a fatty liver independent of body weight gain. These findings suggest that by cutting down on snacking and encouraging three balanced meals each day over the long term may reduce the prevalence of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. In the U.S. the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report that 36% of adult Americans and 17% of children in the country are obese. Studies link obesity to the accumulation of abdominal fat and fat in the liver, making non-alcoholic fatty liver disease one of the most prevalent diseases of the liver. ‰ÛÏAmerican children consume up to 27% of calories from high-fat and high-sugar snacks,‰Û said lead author Dr. Mireille Serlie with the Academic Medical Centre Amsterdam in The Netherlands. Results showed that high calorie diets increased BMI. Eating more frequent meals significantly increased triglycerides in the liver, while larger sized meals did not. So eat more balanced meals and snack less. Easy to say and hard to do.