Appetite is the pleasurable motivation to eat something, according to the definition of nutritional psychologists. It is subject to complex control mechanisms of the nervous system and has little in common with hunger, either psychologically or physiologically.
What is appetite?
Appetite is the pleasurable motivation to eat something, as defined by nutritional psychologists. The limbic system controls both the hunger and satiety centers in the brain. The centers respond to the release of the hormones leptin and ghrelin. When the stomach wall is stretched, neurons send satiety signals to the diencephalon. Information about nutrient levels is also sent to the brain via receptors in the intestines and liver. Likewise, blood glucose levels control the transmission of satiety information to the brain. Unlike hunger, appetite is triggered by visual, gustatory and olfactory stimuli. Hunger causes a lack of glucose in the cells, which leads to a reduction in body heat. Hunger is the signal to now take in food. When appetite is stimulated, the production of saliva and gastric juice increases. We feel a pronounced desire for sweet or sour. Appetite is a mental state and a pleasurable desire for a particular food. Hunger, on the other hand, is the physical desire for food and protects us from malnutrition. Appetite is generated in the limbic system and can occur even when we are not hungry at all.
Function and task
With today’s overabundance of food in industrialized countries, it is not so easy to distinguish between appetite and hunger. If you get a craving for a dessert right after lunch, you are most likely not hungry but just appetite for it. Food preferences are different from appetite, they are mostly genetic and helpful to eat the right food if possible. Bitter things can be poisonous and sweet things are usually harmless. These characteristics of tastes had importance for the survival strategy of our ancestors. Today they are less crucial, but they are still in our genes. We get an appetite for the food we are currently perceiving. Images, pleasant memories and scents therefore have an extreme influence on our desire to eat. The more intense the image, the more certain we are to have an appetite for it. Appetite is also shaped by family and cultural influences. If we were rewarded with certain foods as children, we usually have a particularly strong appetite for this food as adults as well. Real hunger is not as goal-oriented as appetite, because now the primary goal is to consume the necessary amount of calories. Appetite controls food choices and reflects a momentary need. Nowadays, we usually continue to eat when we are no longer hungry at all, bypassing the natural feeling of satiety. Food has taken over many psychological functions, it makes us superficially happy and distracts us from problems. It is easier to eat something than to worry about solving a problem. By consciously eating slowly, we can get our bodies used to the perception of the feeling of fullness again. If you don’t want to gain weight, you have to distinguish precisely between hunger and appetite. Because not always when a strong need for a food occurs, it must be satisfied immediately.
Diseases and ailments
Many diseases of the body and psyche affect our eating behavior. Liver disease, for example, creates an aversion to fats. Those who have a fever crave fluids containing minerals and salt. He usually feels an aversion to high-calorie foods. Those affected by [[gastrointestinal diseases|stomach and intestinal disease]| may even feel disgust for a certain smell or food. Disturbances of appetite can be triggered by psychological and organic diseases. Babies do not know any appetite at all. They eat when they are hungry. The older we get, the more we lose this natural ability to listen to our body. Today we often eat out of appetite and rarely out of hunger. The younger a person is, the more food intake is controlled by internal signals. External stimuli only become more important with increasing age. Then the person reacts much more strongly to appetite-stimulating stimuli. The less leptin in the blood, the weaker the feeling of hunger.Eating disorders are mental illnesses that present with body symptoms and have developed over a long period of time. They include anorexia, bulimia (binge eating and vomiting), obesity, and binge eating disorder, in which extreme bouts of cravings occur repeatedly. Obesity also often has psychological causes or is caused by a misunderstood feeling of hunger. In overweight people, the satiety mechanism is out of action, created by a prolonged period of excessive calorie intake. Affected people feel like eating even though there is a larger amount of leptin in their blood. The reward system of overweight people therefore responds only to very strong stimuli, as is the case with addicts. In order for them to feel satisfied, they have to eat larger amounts. For many people, food also has a comforting function. Even a crying infant is soothed with food, which activates the reward center in the brain. Thus, our rational attitude also controls eating behavior, which in turn influences food choices and portion sizes.
