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American Heritage Dictionary:
hun·ger |
[Middle English, from Old English hungor.]
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A term most commonly used to refer to the subjective feelings that accompany the need for food; however, the study of this topic has come to include consideration of the overall control of food intake. More specifically, experimental work on the problem of hunger has been concerned with the sensory cues that give rise to feelings of hunger, the physiological mechanisms that determine when and how much food will be ingested, and the mechanism governing the selection of the food to be eaten.
Food consumption is basically controlled by the organism's nutritional status. Food deprivation leads to eating, and the ingestion of food materials terminates hunger sensations. The issues are to determine which physiological processes vary quantitatively with nutritional status, and to find out if these changes can be detected by the nervous system in a manner that would instigate and terminate food consumption.
Blood-sugar level, which has received more attention than any other factor, can be used as a case in point. The concentration of blood sugar does indeed vary appropriately in a general way with the periodicity of the food cycle. Detailed analyses of normal life variations of blood sugar, however, reveal that the relation between the concentration of blood sugar and hunger is not sufficiently close for this single humoral factor to be able to control hunger in any simple and direct manner. The evaluation of more local tissue utilization of food has proved a more promising approach to this problem. There is now some evidence suggesting that the status of the liver is pivotal in the control of feeding. Depletion of liver glycogen stimulates feeding; its repletion terminates feeding in rats and rabbits. See also Carbohydrate metabolism; Liver.
Many stimuli that terminate feeding have been identified. Eating in food-deprived animals is inhibited by the reduction of either cellular water or of plasma fluid. It is also reduced by gastric distension and by infusing nutrients into the intestine and into the systemic, especially venous hepatic, circulation. Satiation produced by nutrient absorption from the intestine may be mediated, in part, by the gut hormone cholecystokinin. It is likely that cholecystokinin is effective because it reduces the rate at which food passes through the stomach. The previously held notions of discrete neural centers for the onset and termination of feeding have been abandoned, as the complexity of the feeding act and its corresponding neural complexity have become more widely appreciated.
Deprivation of certain, specific food substances precipitates an increased appetite for the needed substance. This so-called specific hunger behavior has been demonstrated experimentally with many substances, such as salt, calcium, fats, proteins, and certain vitamins in children and in the lower animals studied. It is now clear that only the hunger for salt in salt-deprived animals appears before the animal has learned about the beneficial consequences of salt ingestion. Specific hungers for other minerals, proteins, and vitamins appear only gradually and reflect the animal's learning that certain foods are no longer beneficial and, in fact, may be harmful.
Oxford Food & Fitness Dictionary:
hunger |
A need for food that is usually experienced as an unpleasant sensation. Hunger develops under conditions of food deprivation and the physiological need for nutrients. It may also be provoked by psychological factors. A child who eats lunch regularly at midday will probably feel hungry if the meal is delayed by an hour, even if there is no real physiological need.
Hunger is usually non-specific: the desire is to satisfy the need for energy, and most foods will do. However, under some circumstances of vitamin or mineral deficiency (especially salt deficiency) hunger may be very specific and result in a search for a particular food (this may explain some of the peculiar feeding behaviours of pregnant women).
Subjectively, the sensation of hunger appears to be localized in the stomach, appearing and disappearing as the stomach empties and is refilled. In the nineteenth century a North American hunter, Alexis St. Martin, suffered a gunshot wound to his side which left a hole (fistula) leading into his stomach. The fistula enabled his physician to perform some remarkable experiments, one of which demonstrated that food placed directly in the stomach reduced hunger sensations. However, subsequent experiments have shown that people given food directly in the stomach develop a strong desire to taste, chew, and swallow food. Much to the relief of restauranteurs, the mere physical presence of food in the stomach is not as satisfying as the complete process of eating!
Hunger, it seems, cannot be explained by purely local effects in the stomach and mouth. There is good evidence that the brain contains hunger mechanisms. Receptors in the brain are believed to monitor the availability of glucose for use by cells. As glucose becomes less available, hunger sensations develop. Animal experiments indicate that centres in the hypothalamus (a structure at the base of the brain) play a role in eating behaviours: one centre (the feeding or hunger centre) seems to be responsible for initiating eating, the other (the satiety centre) for stopping. However, it is not clear how important these centres are in determining feeding behaviour in people who have free access to food.
Clearly, hunger is a complex sensation. Whatever mechanism is responsible for hunger, the desire for food may become so intense that it dominates every thought and action. Compare appetite.
Oxford Companion to the Body:
hunger |
Hunger can have a variety of meanings. For example, to a nutritionist it may be used to describe starvation resulting from a lack of food. However, to most of us hunger refers to the sensations we feel when we need food, such as an aching, growling stomach, weakness, or a grumpy mood. Indeed, the Oxford English Dictionary defines hunger as ‘The uneasy or painful sensation caused by want of food.’ This sensation generally motivates an individual to find and to consume food.
Let us start our consideration of hunger with how it feels. Descriptions of hunger come from written reports consisting of checklists of particular sensations, or line scales on which the degree of a sensation is marked. Open-ended verbal reports in which the experience of hunger is described freely are of interest but difficult to quantify. Sometimes the emphasis has been on where in the body an individual experiences hunger. All of these different types of assessments agree that gastric sensations, such as an aching or growling stomach, are most commonly associated with hunger. Other sensations found to occur less frequently are weakness, headaches, pain, dizziness, anxiety, loss of concentration, food craving, thoughts of food, watering of the mouth, discomfort, dry mouth, nausea, and thirst. Large individual differences are seen in both the degree to which hunger is experienced and the way it is perceived. However, in general, when hunger is reported over the entire day it is seen to follow a cyclical pattern in which it rises gradually before meals and falls rapidly as eating proceeds.
An important issue is whether reported hunger can be used to infer how much a person would eat in a given situation. Investigators have found that in some situations hunger does correlate well with food intake, but often it does not. For example, regardless of how hungry someone feels, the amount consumed in a meal can be affected by the palatability, variety, and amount of food offered. The eating environment may also influence intake, in that people often eat more when they are with a group of friends than when eating alone.
Much research has been directed at discovering the role of hunger in the regulation of food intake and food selection. Since hunger is a subjective sensation, strictly speaking it can only be studied in humans. However, experimental animals, particularly laboratory rats, are often used in studies of hunger and the regulation of food intake. Thus, hunger has been defined in ways that do not rely on reports of subjective sensations. Hunger in animals is inferred and measured by the amount eaten. So, for example, if the time since the last meal affects the amount consumed, we assume that this is because food deprivation increases hunger. The assumption in both experimental animals and humans is that, when there is a need for food, the body senses this through a variety of physiological mechanisms, including changes in blood glucose and insulin, and metabolic signals from the liver, all of which are integrated by the brain. When the brain detects that the body needs fuel, a state of hunger develops and the animal eats an amount appropriate to reduce the hunger and reverse the deficit.
While hunger may relate to the physiological signals indicating the body's need for food, learning and environmental influences can influence it as well. A newborn baby apparently experiences hunger in response to cues signalling a need for food, and cries to be fed regularly every few hours. Gradually, through learning, this behaviour changes so that it conforms to imposed meal times. That these times vary widely between cultures — for example, dinner is eaten early in the evening in Norway and late at night in Spain — illustrates the impact of learning on the cyclical pattern of hunger over the day. Studies also indicate that people learn the types and amounts of food required to satisfy their hunger.
Sometimes hunger and food intake are unrelated to the body's need for food. For example, when we are bored or nervous, we may not feel hungry but will nevertheless eat to pass the time or to calm ourselves. Such inappropriate eating can become problematic and contribute to the development of obesity. Some behaviour therapies for obesity emphasize learning to recognize hunger sensations and to eat in response to them. However, some obese individuals complain that they never experience hunger. A critical question which has not yet been clearly answered is whether some overweight individuals have impairments in physiological systems that normally signal hunger.
It is also important to determine whether low food intake, or anorexia, can be due to impaired or reduced hunger in response to physiological needs. For example, hunger may be reduced in chronically ill patients and is reported to be low in individuals with anorexia nervosa. The challenge to their carers is how to induce them to eat. They may need to stimulate ‘appetite’ rather than hunger. While hunger refers to the need to eat, appetite relates to the pleasure of eating. It is appetite that steers us to particular foods. While hunger and appetite are often experienced together, when we are hungry and want a particular food, appetites for foods can occur in the absence of hunger. Thus, we may have an appetite for chocolate or ice cream at the end of a large meal when we are no longer hungry.
Like many other bodily systems, those underlying hunger and the regulation of food intake change with age. Many elderly people do not eat enough to maintain their body weight. While the low food intake may be due in part to poor appetite associated with decreased ability to smell and taste food, there are also changes in hunger. Older individuals not only may report decreased hunger, but studies show that many do not adjust intake appropriately to changes in bodily needs.
Studies of hunger are important clinically in that they may suggest an abnormality of physiological systems related to the detection of signals from normal metabolism of ingested food. Understanding both the biological and behavioural foundations of hunger may help to suggest therapies for inappropriate food intake. For example, some pharmacological agents can reduce both hunger and food intake, which is helpful in the treatment of obesity. When food intake is inappropriately low, treatment may involve stimulating appetite, for example, by increasing the variety and palatability of the available foods, which could increase food intake even when hunger sensations are depressed.
The sensation of hunger links our bodily needs to behavioural food seeking and ingestion. In the wild, animals would be unlikely to survive if the sensation of hunger were abnormal. However, in humans, food is often abundant and culture dictates when and how much should be consumed, so the sensation of hunger has become less crucial for survival. Nevertheless, the high incidence of disorders of body weight indicates that relying on these environmental cues rather than hunger to guide food intake is not an optimal strategy.
— Barbara J. Rolls
Bibliography
See also eating; eating disorders; obesity.
Roget's Thesaurus:
hunger |
Antonyms by Answers.com:
hunger |
Definition: appetite for food, other desire
Antonyms: aversion, satiation, satisfaction
Gale Nutrition Encyclopedia:
Hunger |
Word Tutor:
hunger |
The hikers experienced great hunger and thirst after they got lost in the mountains.
LearnThatWord.com is a free vocabulary and spelling program where you only pay for results!
Quotes About:
Hunger |
Quotes:
"Hunger is not only the best cook, but also the best physician."
- Source Unknown
"Hunger is the best sauce."
- Italian Proverb
"There is hunger for ordinary bread, and there is hunger for love, for kindness, for thoughtfulness; and this is the great poverty that makes people suffer so much."
- Mother Teresa
"Wanting something is not enough. You must hunger for it. Your motivation must be absolutely compelling in order to overcome the obstacles that will invariably come your way."
- Les Brown
The Dream Encyclopedia:
Hunger |
Feeling hungry in a dream may represent a feeling of unfulfillment. The dreamer may be starving for recognition, or hungering to obtain or to achieve something long desired. Alternatively, this dream experience could simply indicate that one is actually hungry and needs to nourish oneself with good food. (See also Devour; Eating).
Wiley Dictionary of Flavors:
Hunger |
Saunders Veterinary Dictionary:
hunger |
A craving, as for food. A localized subjective sensation, assumed to occur in animals, caused by emptiness and a resulting hypermotility of the stomach.
Wikipedia on Answers.com:
Hunger |
Hunger is the most commonly used term to describe the social condition of people who frequently experience the physical sensation of desiring food.
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Contents
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On October 11, 2010, it was reported that the number of malnourished people in the world exceeded 1 billion people,[1] about a sixth of the world's total population.
Six million children die of hunger every year.[2] World Food Programme statistics presented through TeleSUR on 11 January 2012 indicated that approximately every 6 seconds one kid dies of hunger.[3]
According to estimates by the FAO there were 925 million undernourished people in the world in 2010.[4] This was a decrease from an estimate of 1,023 million undernourished people in 2009.[5] The same organization reports that there were 923 million malnourished people in the world in 2007, which in turn represented an increase of 80 million since 1990.[6] The FAO purports that the world already produces enough food to feed everyone — 6 billion people — and could feed double — 12 billion people.[7]
As the number of hungering people is a subset of the under- or malnourished number, the number of people in hunger is smaller. The statistics here may provide some indication but should not be quoted as numbers or shares of people in hunger.
| Year | 1970 | 1980 | 1990 | 2005 | 2007 | 2009 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Share of malnourished people in the developing world[8][9][5] | 37 % | 28 % | 20 % | 16 % | 17 % | 16 % |
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, "850 million people worldwide were undernourished in 1999 to 2005" and the number of hungry people has recently been increasing widely.
There is a wide range of opinions as to why this problem is so persistent. Organizations such as Food First raise the issue of food sovereignty and claim that every country on earth (with the possible minor exceptions of some city-states) has sufficient agricultural capacity to feed its own people, but that the "free trade" economic order associated with such institutions as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank prevent this from happening. At the other end of the spectrum, the World Bank itself claims to be part of the solution to hunger, claiming that the best way for countries to succeed in breaking the cycle of poverty and hunger is to build export-led economies that will give them the financial means to buy foodstuffs on the world market.
Amartya Sen won his 1998 Nobel Prize in part for his work in demonstrating that hunger in modern times was not typically the product of a lack of food; rather, hunger usually arose from problems in food distribution networks or from governmental policies in the developing world.
There is a growing sense among governments and global institutions that eradicating hunger is a fundamental challenge for the 21st century. The United Nations has three agencies that work to promote food security and agricultural development: the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). All three of these agencies are based in Rome, Italy. FAO is the world’s agricultural knowledge agency, providing policy and technical assistance to developing countries to promote food security, nutrition and sustainable agricultural production, particularly in rural areas. FAO also acts as a neutral forum where all nations meet as equals to negotiate agreements and debate policy. WFP’s key mission is to deliver food into the hands of the hungry poor. The agency steps in during emergencies and uses food to aid recovery after emergencies. Its longer term approaches to hunger help the transition from recovery to development. IFAD, with its knowledge of rural poverty and exclusive focus on poor rural people, designs and implements programmes to help those people access the assets, services and opportunities they need to overcome poverty.
In 2002, the World Bank began a study involving 61 countries and more than 400 agricultural scientists. In 2008 they released a report called the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development. It contained ideas about how to feed the world, fight poverty and address climate change. According to the report, small-scale, diverse, sustainable farms and home gardens had the most potential to solve the world’s hunger problems while reversing modern agriculture’s devastation of ecosystems. The authors concluded that “small farms are often among the most productive in terms of output per unit of land and energy.” Also, they wrote, “an increasing percentage of the funding of university science tends to be concentrated in areas of commercial interest or in advanced studies such as satellite imaging, nanotechnologies and genomics rather than in applications deeply informed by knowledge of farming practice and ecological contexts.” Regarding genetically engineered crops, the report cited “possible risks to biodiversity and human health” and the “privatization of the plant breeding system and concentration of market power in input companies.”[10] [11]
Several humanitarian organizations are using the internet to raise awareness about hunger and to raise funds. Web campaigns like the 1billionhungry and websites like Freerice, where users accumulate rice for the hungry as they answer questions, or WeFeedback, where they share information about their favourite food as they donate, are examples of how internet-based tools are being used in new ways to help fight hunger.
UNICEF, UNHCR and WFP have recently built a substantial social media presence, marking a further development in the bid to engage the 1.8 billion internet users worldwide in the issue of hunger.
The Meals On Wheels Association of America Foundation (MOWAAF) has found that hunger is a serious threat facing millions of seniors in the United States, and that understanding the problem is a critical first step to developing remedies. In 2007, MOWAAF, underwritten by the Harrah's Foundation, commissioned a research study entitled The Causes, Consequences and Future of Senior Hunger in America.[12] The report was released at a hearing of the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging in March 2008 in Washington, D.C.
The study found that in the US, over 5 million seniors (11.4% of seniors), experience some form of food insecurity (i.e., were marginally food insecure). Of these, about 2.5 million are at-risk of hunger, and about 750,000 suffer from hunger due to financial constraints. Some groups of seniors are more likely to be at-risk of hunger. Relative to their representation in the overall senior population, those with limited incomes, under age 70, African American, Hispanic, never-married, renters, and seniors living in the Southern United States are all more likely to be at-risk of hunger. While certain groups of seniors are at greater-risk of hunger, hunger cuts across the income spectrum. For example, over 50% of all seniors who are at-risk of hunger have incomes above the poverty threshold. Likewise, it is present in all demographic groups. For example, over two-thirds of seniors at-risk of hunger are Caucasian. There are marked differences in the risk of hunger across family structure, especially for those seniors living alone, or those living with a grandchild. Those living alone are twice as likely to experience hunger compared to married seniors. One in five senior households with a grandchild (but no adult child) present is at-risk of hunger, compared to about 1 in 20 households without a grandchild present. Seniors living in non-metropolitan areas are as likely to experience food insecurity as those living in metropolitan areas, suggesting that food insecurity cuts across the urban-rural continuum.[13]
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Translations:
Hunger |
Dansk (Danish)
n. - sult, hunger, begær, trang
v. intr. - sulte, hungre
v. tr. - sulte, hungre
idioms:
Nederlands (Dutch)
honger, eetlust, hongersnood
Français (French)
n. - faim, famine, (fig) désir ardent (de)
v. intr. - (fig) avoir faim de
v. tr. - soumettre à la famine, manquer de nourriture
idioms:
Deutsch (German)
n. - Hunger, Hungersnot
v. - Hunger haben, hungern, aushungern, hungern nach (Macht usw.)
idioms:
Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - πείνα, λιγούρα, (μτφ.) δίψα, λαχτάρα, σφοδρή επιθυμία
idioms:
idioms:
Português (Portuguese)
n. - fome (f), desejo (m)
idioms:
idioms:
Español (Spanish)
n. - hambre, hambruna
v. intr. - tener hambre, estar hambriento, ansiar, anhelar
v. tr. - hacer pasar hambre
idioms:
Svenska (Swedish)
n. - hunger (äv. bildl.), längtan
中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
饿, 饥饿, 渴望, 饥荒, 挨饿, 使挨饿
idioms:
中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 餓, 饑餓, 渴望, 饑荒
v. intr. - 挨餓, 渴望
v. tr. - 使挨餓
idioms:
한국어 (Korean)
n. - 굶주림, 갈망
v. intr. - 굶주리다, 갈망하다
v. tr. - 굶주리게 하다
日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 飢え, 飢餓, 空腹, 熱望, 渇望
v. - 飢える, 渇望する
idioms:
العربيه (Arabic)
(الاسم) جوع, سغب, توق, اشتهاء
עברית (Hebrew)
n. - רעב, תאווה
v. intr. - השתוקק, רעב
v. tr. - הרעיב
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 | satiety |
| hunger-bit |
| hunger-starve |
 | How do you beat hunger? |
| Is there hunger in China? |
| What is information hunger? |
Copyrights:
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 | American Heritage Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| McGraw-Hill Science & Technology Encyclopedia. McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology. Copyright © 2005 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Oxford Food & Fitness Dictionary. Food and Fitness: A Dictionary of Diet and Exercise. Copyright © 1997, 2003 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Oxford Companion to the Body. The Oxford Companion to the Body. Copyright © 2001, 2003 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Roget's Thesaurus. Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary Copyright © 1995 byHoughton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Antonyms by Answers.com. © 1999-present by Answers Corporation. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Gale Nutrition Encyclopedia. Nutrition and Well-Being A-Z © 2004 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Word Tutor. Copyright © 2004-present by eSpindle Learning, a 501(c) nonprofit organization. All rights reserved. eSpindle provides personalized spelling and vocabulary tutoring online; sign up free. Read more |
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| Quotes About. Copyright © 2005 QuotationsBook.com. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| The Dream Encyclopedia. The Dreams Encyclopedia. 1995 ©Visible Ink Press (VisibleInkPress.com). All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Wiley Dictionary of Flavors. Copyright © 2008 by Wiley-Blackwell. Wiley and the Wiley logo are registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and other countries. Used here by license. Read more |
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| Saunders Veterinary Dictionary. Saunders Comprehensive Veterinary Dictionary 3rd Edition. Copyright © 2007 by D.C. Blood, V.P. Studdert and C.C. Gay, Elsevier. All rights reserved. Read more |
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Rhymes. Oxford University Press. © 2006, 2007 All rights reserved. Read more | |
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| Bradford's Crossword Solver's Dictionary. Collins Bradford's Crossword Solver's Dictionary © Anne Bradford, 1986, 1993, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2008 HarperCollins Publishers All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Wikipedia on Answers.com. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Hunger. Read more |
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