I’ve been collecting scientific studies on fasting and aim to write an article about it at some point. Meantime, you’re right: The perception that fasting is starvation is inaccurate. Without suggesting how long a period is ideal for fasting (because I have not yet done all the research), one thing is pretty clear in the scientific literature: Eating late at night is bad for sleep (and thus bad for health). So a person simply sets a reasonable cutoff for evening consumption, let’s say ~3–4 hours before bedtime, then gets a reasonable amount of sleep, they’re closing in on a 12-hour fasting window already, and one might argue that’s rather natural and, logically, probably not a bad start. But I’ve got to look into this further. Thanks for the prompt!