What’s the difference between hunger and appetite? Appetite asks, “What
do we have to eat?,” while hunger asks, “Is there anything to eat?”
Hunger pangs jab at your stomach, driving you to find some fuel. Often, the first
bite is followed by a flash flood of food. Appetite gives you time to choose healthy
foods and drinks.
Nature drives us to eat. This natural biological drive to survive exists in every
living creature. Sometimes the hunger habit careens out of control and contributes
to obesity. Several causes of “hyper-hunger” include biochemical imbalances,
psychological stress, and unhealthy eating habits, although these causes often overlap.
Biochemical Hunger
The central switchboard for hunger is the hypothalamus. This part of the brain controls
survival functions such as appetite, sleep, body temperature, heartbeat and breathing.
If you slice the part of a lab animal’s hypothalamus that affects appetite,
it will starve to death in front of food. If you slice a different part of the hypothalamus,
the lab animal will eat until it becomes obese.
Despite numerous theories on proteins, endorphins, neurotransmitters, gut hormones,
glucose levels, cortisol and other substances, appetite regulation still remains
a medical mystery. It is not fully understood why some people with certain health
conditions have weight fluctuations.
For instance, why do people with type 1 diabetes typically lose weight, while people
with type 2 diabetes gain weight? Other conditions affecting weight are psychological
states (anxiety, depression, bulimia), thyroid disease (hyper and hypo), medications
(certain antidepressants, etc.), some street drugs such as marijuana, hormonal fluctuations
(premenstrual syndrome), and conditions such as Cushing’s syndrome, Addison’s
disease, and Prader-Willi syndrome. These types of “hunger” require
medical attention for the underlying physical or mental health condition.
Stress Hunger
Another factor that may affect appetite is stress. Pinch the tail of a rat and it
will eat more. This is stress hunger. Severe stress may shift a person “off
center,” creating biochemical stress that increases or decreases appetite.
Sweets are a particular problem because sugar is known to release opioids and dopamine
in the body. One theory suggests that the more food you eat (regardless of the reason),
the more opioid-like receptors for food are created. The result is a “hunger”
for more food than what’s needed.
Unhealthy Eating Habits
In addition to stress, hyper-hunger in lab rats can be caused by an unhealthy diet
of peanut butter, cookies and marshmallows. Rats will maintain their weight if fed
regular rat food, but an assortment of treats will cause them to overeat and become
obese. Translated to humans, that means excess eating due to stress, a lack of portion
control, or eating large amounts of sugary or fatty foods can lead to a “food
addiction.”
Children often learn the habit of overeating from their parents when they are given
portions larger than necessary and fed a constant diet of high-calorie sweet and
fatty foods (fast foods, plate lunches, desserts, candies, chips, sodas, sugared
cereals, etc.). Both dietary patterns cause an unnatural hunger for more food, which
contributes to obesity. These eating patterns are difficult for children to break,
especially when many parents do not realize that their child may have a weight problem.
The good news is that it generally takes just 90 days to break a habit and create
a new one. Following a healthy eating pattern for life trumps fad diets that work
quickly but may be temporary. Most people cannot stay on fad diets long enough to
change their eating habits because the food pattern is often unhealthy and the body
instinctively reacts.