appetite

appetite is the joyful 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, neither psychologically nor physiologically.

What is appetite?

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, the nerve cells send saturation signals to the diencephalon. Information about the nutrient content is also sent to the brain via receptors in the intestine and liver. The blood sugar level also controls the transmission of satiety information to the brain.

Unlike hunger, appetite is triggered by visual and taste stimuli as well as by olfactory stimuli. When hungry, there is a glucose deficiency in the cells, which leads to a reduction in body heat. Hunger is the signal to eat now.

If the appetite is stimulated, the production of saliva and gastric juice increases. We feel a pronounced desire for trick or treating. Appetite is a psychological state and a lustful desire for a certain food. Hunger, on the other hand, is the physical need for food and protects us from malnutrition. Appetite is generated in the limbic system and can arise even when we are not hungry at all.

Function & task

With today's oversupply of food in industrialized countries, it is not at all easy to distinguish between appetite and hunger. If you feel like a dessert right after lunch, you are most likely not hungry, just hungry for it.

Food preferences differ from appetite, they are mostly genetic and helpful in order to eat the right food as possible. Bitter foods can be poisonous and sweets are usually harmless. These characteristics of the flavors played an important role in the survival strategy of our ancestors. Today they are less crucial, but they are still in the genes.

We get an appetite for the food we are consuming. Images, pleasant memories and smells have an extreme influence on our appetite. The more intense the performance, the more certain we are of having an appetite for it. The appetite is also shaped by family and cultural influences. If we were rewarded with certain dishes as children, we usually also have a particularly strong appetite for this dish as adults. Real hunger is not as targeted as appetite, because now it is primarily a matter of taking in the necessary amount of calories.

The appetite controls the choice of food and reflects a momentary need. Nowadays we usually continue to eat when we are no longer hungry and bypass the natural feeling of satiety.

Food has many psychological functions, it makes us superficially happy and distracts us from problems. Eating something is easier than worrying about solving a problem.

By eating slowly and consciously, we can get our body used to feeling full 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 food arises, it has to be satisfied immediately.

Illnesses & ailments

Many diseases of the body and the psyche influence our eating behavior. Liver disease, for example, creates an aversion to fats. If you have a fever, you need mineral and salty liquids. He usually feels an aversion to high-calorie foods.Anyone who has [[gastrointestinal diseases gastrointestinal disease] can even get disgust at a certain smell or food.

Appetite disorders can be triggered by mental and organic diseases. Babies have no appetite at all. They eat when they are hungry. The older we get, the more we lose this natural ability to listen to our bodies. 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. The external stimuli only gain importance with increasing age. Then the person reacts much more strongly to appetite stimulating stimuli. The less leptin there is in the blood, the weaker the feeling of hunger.

Eating disorders are mental illnesses that show up with physical symptoms and that have developed over a long period of time. These include anorexia (anorexia), bulimia (eating and vomiting), obesity (obesity) and the binge-eating disorder, in which extreme food cravings occur repeatedly.

Obesity, too, often has emotional causes or a misunderstood feeling of hunger. In overweight people, the satiety mechanism is inoperative, caused by a long period of excessive calorie intake. Affected people feel like eating even though there is a large amount of leptin in their blood. As with addicts, the reward system of overweight people only reacts to very strong stimuli. In order for the feeling of satisfaction to arise, you have to ingest 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. Our rational attitude also controls eating behavior, which in turn influences the choice of food and the size of the portions.