Are you hungry or bored? Homeostatic vs. Hedonic hunger

During quarantine you might find yourself in the kitchen more times during one day then you can count. Most of these times you do not feel hungry, but you do not know where else to go. So what are you feeling? Many factors can be confused with hunger, boredom is the most common one. So how do you know if you are hungry or bored when you are in the kitchen craving food? Here is a clarification.

What is hunger?

Feeling hungry can mean two things; hunger from not having eaten for a while and needing calories and energy to function, or hunger where you just want food.

The first type of hunger is called homeostatic hunger while the second hedonic hunger.

To better understand which type of hunger you are feeling whenever you find yourself in front of the fridge, we will dig deeper into each type.

Homeostatic hunger

When you are in need of food to fuel your body, a complex series of signals travel throughout your brain and body to alert you for this need. The hormones are released when your energy stores are too low. This leads to increasing the level of the hunger hormone, or Ghrelin, and only food can stop this increase. When you eat after this process happens, your body will send a signal of fullness or satiety responses starting from your mouth until the small intestine to alert the body that the needs have been met.

Meanwhile, something else is happening in the brain; the hunger-suppressing and the hunger-stimulating peptides (known as anorexigenic and orexigenic respectively) are circulating. The sets of opposing signals work to inform the brain that this person is full or is hungry.

While eating is the best solution for Homeostatic hunger, including fiber and lean proteins is even a better solution. Eating large portions of protein increases the feeling of fullness. Other tips to follow for dealing better with hunger. For example, the zero-calorie sweeteners can trick your brain to make it think you haven’t eaten much, and thus, it will not feel full and might crave more food.

Hedonic Hunger

Hedonic hunger is the feeling of craving foods without having your body need them. This is believed to be due to the availability of really delicious foods. The more a person consume these foods, the more their brain are likely to crave them outside the hunger situation.

The common component between homeostatic and hedonic eating is; pleasure. However homeostatic eating is induced by pleasure and the need for calories, while hedonic eating is encouraged only by pleasure.

These two types are not completely distinct but make up the two ends of a spectrum. Therefore, hunger feelings could be a mix of both with a prevalence of one over the other. And even when you can recognize hedonic from homeostatic hunger, the first one is harder to fight.

Few tips to fight hedonic hunger:

• Keep highly tempting foods away from your pantry
• Chose healthier options rather than ones filled with calories (fruits over sugary candy)
• Buy snacks that come in small portions rather than a big one that you can consume over a period of time.

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