Hedonic Hunger

Hedonic Hunger 

Access to food was a serious problem thousands of years ago. Hunting had to face dangers and risks to life. With the start of agricultural activities, it became a little easier to reach food. Their eating habits have changed a bit. However, drought periods, wars, migrations and diseases have left people face to face with hunger for thousands of years as factors preventing access to food.

Today, the developing technology has enabled the increase of agricultural activities, production, and the transportation of food produced in remote areas to other parts of the world easily and in a short time. Access to food has become much easier, except in some parts of the world that are still struggling with factors such as poverty, war and disease.

This ease of access to food brought along other problems. Obesity and related chronic diseases come first among these. There are about 2.1 billion people defined as obesity and overweight in the world. Of course, excess weight and obesity cannot be explained only by quick access to food. Many factors such as changes in dietary habits, the effects of external factors on the contents of food, and movement restrictions cannot be ignored in increasing weight and related diseases.

The desire for excessive nutrition is an important problem of today’s societies. The urge to overeat develops to suppress hunger. However, the concept of hunger has been discussed in recent years. Hunger is a person’s need to eat. It is natural to try to meet the need for food when hungry. However, the issue that needs to be discussed is whether hunger is really felt.

Homeostatic hunger: When the person’s physiological need for energy occurs, it is to meet the energy need by taking the food as needed. The person is really hungry and tries to meet it.

Blood glucose level decreases, free fatty acid level increases. A feeling of hunger develops. Homeostatic regulatory mechanisms come into play. The left portion of the hypothalamus is cleaved by orexigenic peptides. Food intake is stimulated by ghrelin, neuropeptide Y, orexin, galanin, melanin concentrating hormone, opioids, nitric oxide and cannabinoids.

When a sufficient amount of food is taken, the middle part of the hypothalamus, which is the satiety center, is stimulated by stimuli such as leptin, insulin, cholecystokinin, glucagon-like peptide-1, cocaine-amphetamine regulatory transcript, serotonin, α-melanocyte stimulating hormone, corticotropin-releasing factor, nesfatin1 and bombesin. food intake is stopped.

Brainstem nerves are involved in this regulatory mechanism in cortical and subcortical divisions. In this way, reward, sensory information, appetite come into play. Since the same systems are used, this causes a clear distinction between homeostatic hunger and hedonic hunger.

Hedonic hunger: Although the person does not have a physiological need for energy, he feels as if he needs energy for various reasons and takes extra food to try to meet it. So the person is not really hungry. One can speak of false starvation. The person may even be aware of this false hunger. However, it still takes food to fix this problem. Since the energy taken with food intake cannot be spent, the excess will accumulate in the body. This will result in increased weight and obesity. There is a trigger factor that reveals hedonic hunger.

Depending on the triggering factor, expectations, rewards and senses come into play. Expectation, foraging behavior, and reward are regulated by dopaminergic systems, while the pleasure mechanism is regulated by opioidergic systems. In addition to the hypothalamus, cortico-limbic brain parts are also involved here. The nucleus accumbens and caudate nucleus regulate dopaminergic mechanisms, while the amygdala, hippocampus and orbitofrontal cortex regulate reward and sensory mechanisms. Hunger-regulating mechanisms and stimulating peptides in the hypothalamus are also in charge here.

Hunger, which develops with trigger factors, stimulates the dopaminergic system. With the initiation of food intake, the dopaminergic mechanism stimulates the opioidergic mechanism. Dopamine level, which rises to a certain level with food intake, is also kept under control by the level of pleasure and the opioidergic mechanism. Although the nutrient intake is sufficient, the reward is not considered sufficient unless the pleasure is at a sufficient level, and the food intake continues. Of course, in the meantime, hunger and satiety centers were also warned and the system was put into use.

Hedonic hunger is felt more intensely against products containing carbohydrates or fats. It is based on this that women react more strongly to sweet cravings than men. It has been observed that especially sucrose and fructose in carbohydrates have more effects on hedonic systems.



Similarly, a low-protein diet stimulates hedonic mechanisms in the brain and creates a desire for salty and high-protein food intake. Likewise, a diet with a high fat content is perceived as more delicious, and it stimulates the hedonic system in its deficiency.

Relationship between hedonic hunger and obesity: 

Numerous studies have been conducted showing the relationship between hedonic hunger and obesity and other factors. Studies show that hedonic hunger is higher in obese individuals than in non-obese individuals. The basis of this relationship lies in the relationship between obesity and eating habits rich in sugar, fat and salt. Studies in obese or overweight individuals have shown that hedonic hunger decreases with a decrease in body mass index.

False hunger causes/triggers: 

• Advertisements: The food market uses many different advertising elements and tries to show the products as delicious, irresistible and attractive. The advertisement of delicious sausage at the barbecue at midnight, the motif of the actor hungrily eating a huge chicken leg, chocolates, colorful candies, etc. It is not few who watch the cooking show and look for a street-to-street dessert in the middle of the night. All these marketing efforts arouse more hedonic hunger. Even though the person is not really hungry and knows that if he eats, he will accumulate as calories that he cannot spend, the desire to eat, reward himself, and enjoy awakens. The reason why the chocolate aisle in the markets is right next to the cash register and at eye level is the marketing tactic based on this mechanism. This issue should also be taken into account in the plans made for the fight against obesity.
• Seeing or thinking about food : Seeing or thinking about food can cause hormonal changes in the body. It’s like the secretion of insulin in the sweet-thinking person.
• Smelling the food : You came home from work tired, the smell of home-cooked food is everywhere. As soon as you enter, the delicious smell greets you. Even if you ate right before you arrived or ate too much for lunch, it will make you feel hungry due to hormonal changes. Similarly, the delicious smell of the fresh bagel your colleague receives at work will make you feel hungry and push you to eat, even if you have breakfast in the morning. You’ve taken your life.
• Social pressure: When you go to a visit, a program, a party, they invite you to dinner. Sometimes they insist. In order not to break it, you want to eat even if you are not hungry. If the food is delicious, you will eat as much as everyone else at the table where you sit down to eat a little.
• Insomnia: Insomnia causes an increase in proteins that stimulate the hunger center. You will respond to stimuli and eat even if you are not actually hungry or know it would be wrong to eat late. You feel rewarded.
• Thirst: The hunger and thirst center is the hypothalamus. Sometimes if you drink a glass of water when you feel hungry, your hunger will disappear. This is not real hunger.
• Travel: During the journey, you may develop the thought that you will experience conditioning, and that you will have problems reaching food during the bus/airplane/train journey. This makes you feel hungry, may push you to eat the offered food or have a snack during breaks.
• Habits: The person who gets used to eating dessert or drinking coffee after meals will continue this habit after heavy meals to reward and enjoy himself.
• Difficult times: Exam periods for students, inspection times for employees, cleaning days for women are difficult times. During these periods, a feeling of hunger also develops in the body trying to cope with stress. Food is eaten as a reward mechanism.
• Emptying of the stomach: Sometimes the emptying of the stomach, either intentionally or due to illness, creates the feeling of being hungry when you are not actually hungry. It is more common in people who have a mostly full stomach.
• Emotional pressure: In situations such as depression, anxiety, eating disorders, intense stress, and grief, stimuli in the brain can make you feel hungry. You want to increase your blood glucose level, to reward yourself, to enjoy, to be happy. You eat as if you were hungry when you are not actually hungry.

 Fighting false hunger: 

• Don’t let the ads affect you. Remember that they are a marketing element, played with their color and shape to attract attention. Think about what might actually happen. Remember you don’t need it.
• You do not have to eat if you are not hungry at invitations, visits or programs. This does not offend anyone. There are ways to express this more appropriately.
• Exercise will allow you to both burn calories and forget about the feeling of hunger.
• Eat well. Establish a good balance of carbohydrates, proteins and fats in meals. This balance may vary depending on your characteristics, weight or diseases. When you make this balance a habit, the excess sweets you take in case of false hunger will disturb you.
• Set your plate. Get as much food as you need on your plate. Do not buy a new one when the plate is finished. When you establish this balance, your sense of satisfaction will also be balanced.
• For lots of water. Since thirst and hunger are controlled from the hypothalamus, it will suppress your false sense of hunger.
• Chew sugar-free gum. Keeping your mouth busy with chewing gum prevents hunger stimuli from going to the brain, relieves digestion and suppresses the feeling of hunger.