Food Glorious Food

Noureen Lakhani

Ask yourself these question: What makes you hungry? Why do you get hungry? Does hunger cause eating?

Pear and Chocolate Crumble, as per NLCS tradition, looking enticing?

It seems quite logical to say that we eat simply because we are hungry.  We experience a signal of hunger whereby certain events take place in our bodies when we haven’t eaten for a certain period of time and these act together to ‘signal’ us to eat.

However, have you ever considered that it could be possible to eat in the absence of hunger, or eating despite not being hungry?  This is probably a situation we have all found ourselves in; being tempted to eat by the smell of food or the look crunchy yet soft pear and chocolate crumble.  This suggests that hunger isn’t necessary for eating.  

Blundell and Hill (1995) carried out an experiment that promoted an ‘appetite control system’ where hunger, eating and physiological mechanisms are coupled together.  These physiological mechanisms could include eating because the level of nutrients in our body have fallen below a certain point.

One of the most earliest formal theories were proposed by Cannon and Washurn in 1912.  They conducted an experiment where Washburn swallowed an empty balloon tied to the end of a thin tube.  Cannon would then pump some air into the balloon and connect the end of the tube to a U-tube glass filled with with water.  This initiated Wasburn’s stomach to contract and increase the level of water in the other end of the U-tube.  A ‘hunger pang’ - stomach contraction resulting in hunger - was noted each time a large contraction was recorded.  The results confirmed that when there is food in your stomach, small contractions known as peristaltic contractions, mixed the food and moved it along the digestive tract.  However, when the stomach is empty, the contractions were larger, reporting hunger.  

Other factors that influence eating  can be eating for pleasure.  Food has incentive properties that anticipate pleasure-producing effects and drive us to eat that food. There are many food-predicted cues, or conditioned stimuli, such as the smell of food, the dinner bell, or seeing 12:25 on the clock which trigger salivation, insulin secretion and gastric secretions.  These metabolic events are called cephalic phase responses.  These responses can be conditioned  by our senses which causes us to feel hungry at those times of the day when we usual eat, regardless of the fact that we are not experiencing an energy deficit.  

Looking at these conclusions may be no surprise to you, but simply reinstates the idea that we enjoy eating whether we our body needs food or not.  It is tumours in the hypothalamus that cause hyperphagia (excessive overeating).  What I want to question is what exactly is in the food that we eat that makes it our favourite?  Is it that it is served hot, or that the texture is how we enjoy it?  Most importantly, might social factors play a greater role in rather than in your eating?