Psychological Aspects of Hunger

Eating is positively reinforced by the good taste of food and negatively reinforced by hunger reduction. We develop an expectation of eating being pleasurable, making it an important motivation to seek out and consume food. Even the mere thought of food can trigger a feeling of hunger.

Attitudes, habits, and psychological needs also regulate food intake. Have you felt stuffed during a meal yet finished it and gone on to have dessert as well? Beliefs such as not to leave food remaining on your plate, as well as condition habits of autopilot snacking while watching TV, may lead us to eat even when we are not hungry. Conversely, countless dieters tend to restrict their food intake even when hungry.

Social Pressure

Especially for women, such restrictions stem from social pressure to conform to cultural standards of beauty from Playboy centrefolds and beauty pageant contestants and fashion models. It is an indicator of a clear trend towards a thinner and increasingly unrealistic ideal female body shape starting from the 1950s. Given the deluge of "thin = attractive" mass media messages in many parts of the world, it's not surprising that a survey in Australia has revealed that, even though most young women there are of average, healthy weight, only a fifth are happy with it.

Among 12 to 19-year-old Chinese female students, 80 percent are concerned about their weight. Compared with male American high school students, female students are less likely to be overweight, but more likely to diet and think of themselves as overweight. In comparison to men, women became increasingly dissatisfied with their body image throughout the last half of the 20th century.

A study by April Fallon and Paul Rozzin suggests an additional reason for this. Female college students overestimated the needed body average to conform to male preferences, while men overestimated their necessary bulkiness to conform to women's preferences. Women also had the tendency to perceive their body shape as heavier than ideal.

A study in 2004, on American and Spanish men and women, replicated this study with men's overall perception serving to keep them satisfied with their figures, while women's perceptions placed pressure on them to lose weight. Whether it be Caucasian American, African American, or Hispanic American, the men seemed more likely to have ego-protective perceptions about their body shape than women do.

However, men, too, are influenced by cultural ideals. College men's satisfaction with their bodies tend to decrease when exposed to series of advertisements of muscular males, but not when advertisements of average-built men came on. College athletes with value for muscle function tend to believe that women's preference is for a more muscular body type than theirs, making them have a preference of being more muscular than they are. The general consensus is that women's typical need is to be thin, with men who are overweight wanting to be thin and thin men wanting to be more buff.

Environmental and Cultural Factors

Food availability is the most obvious environmental regulator of eating. For millions who live poverty-stricken or famine-ravaged regions, the scarcity of food limits consumption. In contrast, the abundance of high-fat foods in many countries is a contributing factor to a high rate of obesity.

The taste and varieties of food also regulate eating. Foods that taste good increase consumption, but during a meal and from meal-to-meal; we can grow tired of eating the same thing, causing termination of the meal more quickly. In contrast, food variety increases consumption as observed at buffets.

This is because, through classical conditioning, we learn to associate the smell and sight of food with taste; in return, these food cues cause hunger. You may not be hungry and feel no need to indulge yourself unnecessarily, but the sensuous aroma will change your mind, making you feel hungry when you are not, like when you get the smell of baked goods. Even rats who are already full and ignore available foods will eat again with classically conditioned lights and sound settings they are used to associate food with.

Many other environmental stimuli can affect food intake. For example, we tend to eat more when dining with others than when dining alone. Cultural norms influence when, how, and what we eat as well. In Mediterranean countries such as Greece and Spain, they often begin their dinner late evening (around 9 p.m.). By this time, most North Americans have finished their dinner. Also, although we love variety, we tend to be more comfortable with familiar foods, often feeling difficulty overcoming squeamish thoughts of unfamiliar dishes.

Obesity

The heaviest known male and female according to history records were both Americans, weighing 1,400 pounds and 1,200 pounds, respectively, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, in 2000. A few people had approached that weight, but according to the body mass index (BMI), which takes into account the height and weight of an individual; a staggering 25 to 30 percent of American adults are obese, with 30 to 35 percent being overweight. From Canada to the Palestinian west bank, the adult obesity rates recorded are 20 to 50 percent according to many studies.

Being Obese places a great risk on one's health, as well as targets of prejudice and stereotypes. Obesity is often blamed on lack of will-power, a dysfunctional coping mechanism, heightened sensitivity to external food cues, and emotional disturbances. However, researchers have no such consistent findings between obese and non-obese people. There are hormone-related conditions that can cause weight-gain without excess food consumption, too, and hypothyroidism is one of them. South-East Asians tend to stay slim even with high-fat food consumption due to their genes, which means genes may be in play in as well, in cases of obesity.