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| CC BY 2.5 anacleaver_2000 |
When I was getting
my Bachelors degree in psychology, I had to take a class called
“Biopsychology”. The class was very interesting, focusing mostly
on how the structures of the brain influence behavior. One of the
gems wedged in the book was a chapter on eating and hunger, called
“Why Do Many People Over Eat?” Now, I'm kind of a geek, and I'm
very curious about health, eating, and diets. When I saw this
chapter, I was really excited about going over it in class. I wanted
to know why people would overeat, so that I could apply this
knowledge to my own life, and, hopefully, lose weight.
The
author of Biopsychology, John J.P. Pinel, makes it very
clear that our bodies are designed for storing as much energy as they
can, not for giving us the ideal amount of energy as we need it,
writing, “you may believe your body is short of energy just before
a meal, it is not” (1). Pinel points to the environment that our
ancestors had to survive in. He argues that if our bodies were
designed for using all energy immediately, our ancient predecessors
would have starved during long winters or famines.
Now, I will talk
about several studies, but stay with me, there's a method to my
madness, or at least, there is this time. Other times...I make no
promises.
To illustrate his
case that hunger is more than a regulation of energy Pinel writes
about R.H., a patient with severe anterograde amnesia. Researchers
offered R.H. his favorite meal: veal parmigiana and apple juice.
Fifteen minutes after R.H. had finished eating (and had forgotten his
previous meal), researchers offered him another meal of veal
parmigiana and apple juice. Again, R.H. ate it. They offered it a
third time with the same result, and a fourth, at which point, he
refused saying “his stomach felt a little tight.” Then, only
minutes after R.H. had refused, he announced he was going for a walk
and some veal parmigiana (2). The message here is clear, hunger is
not motivated by a need for energy, but rather other reasons. In the
book, Pinel makes the case the our hunger can be motivated by such
things as our schedule, simply having food in front of us (would you
say “no” to your favorite plate of food pipping hot and inches
away from your face, even if you weren't hungry?) or by habit.
In another study
on sham eating, Weingarten H. P., &
Kulikovsky cut the esophagi of rats, connecting it with an
external tube, so that anything the rats ate would not reach their
stomachs. The researchers (whom you might be thinking are mad
scientists at this point) had two groups: rats that had previously
eaten a specific brand of rat chow (group A) and rats that had never
eaten that brand of rat chow (group B). Group A was found to eat
similar amounts of rat food as they had previously, even though none
of the food was reaching their stomach. Group B, on the other hand,
was found to eat more rat chow than group A. When researchers
reconnected the rats esophagi to their stomachs, they found that
group B ate similar amounts of food to when none of their food was
reaching their stomach (3). This suggests that we eat based on
experience, not based on how much food we need at that point in time.
After reading
about these and other studies done on hunger, the message to me was
clear: if you are overweight, it is because you eat too much, and in
general, people eat much more than they need.
Now, I have always
struggled with my weight, and like most women, I am very sensitive
about it. Reading this chapter was like someone bashing me over the
head with a large mallet while screaming, “stop eating so damn
much!” That is to say, it was very unpleasant. Thus I decided that
I would reduce my eating to so-many number of calories in a given
meal, and I would not eat anything unnecessary (i.e. snacks,
desserts, etc...) and I would lose weight. I would ignore my hunger
pangs, after all, “the strong, unpleasant feelings of hunger that
you may experience at meal times are not cries from your body for
food; they are the sensation of your body's preparations for the
expected homeostasis-disturbing meal” (1). Translation: eating a
meal is rough on your body.
So I did it. I
ignored my hunger pangs, ate relatively little, and was absolutely
and completely miserable.
For two whole
weeks I was grumpy, irritable, and had a headache that would not go
away.
Let me repeat
that.
It. Would. Not.
Go. Away.
Two weeks.
I was miserable. I
couldn't sleep at night because I was so hungry. I wanted more food
in a way that mentally talking myself out of it couldn't curb. Yet,
the research resounded in my head. I was overweight because I ate too
much. I did not need more energy. My body had energy
to use in the form of fat. I would not die from this diet, I just
wished I would.
One day, I was talking to my sister on the phone. I was going on and
on about all the research I had recently read, and how I was trying
to incorporate it into my life, and how I felt sick and awful. On and
on I went, until finally my sister stopped me. “Katerina, eat when
you're hungry, stop when you're not.” Simple. Easy. Non-headache
inducing. And like that, I was free from my research malaise.
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| CC BY 2.5 Marcin Wichary |
Now,
let me be clear. I am not recommending eating large quantities of
food every day all day, or that we should not listen to what research
has to say. My point is moderation. Research may suggest that we eat
too much, or that by reducing the amount of food we eat, the longer
our life will be, but really, who wants
to live constantly hungry and obsessing over food?
1. Pinel, J. (2009). Biopsychology. (7th ed.). New York: Custom
Publishing.
2. Rozin, P., Dow, S., Moscovitxh, M., & Majaram, S. (1998). What
causes humans to being and end a meal? A role for memory for what has
been eaten, as evidence by a study of multiple meal eating in amnesic
patients. Psychological Science, 9, 392-392.
3. Weingarten H. P., & Kulikovsky, O.T. (1989). Taste-to
postingestive consequence conditioning: Is the rise in sham feeding
with repeated experience a learning phenomenon? Physiology &
Behavior, 45, 471-476
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