Are You Really Hungry?

You’d think true hunger is something we’d have evolved to recognise instinctively – but we haven’t. In fact, we often find it difficult to distinguish between real hunger and a host of other things, like thirst or boredom.

- Ruth Marcus

You’ve just finished a nutritious, satisfying mealand settled downto watch a bit of TV. A giant, juicy cheeseburger is staring you down. Just five seconds later, there are doughnuts. Lots and lots of doughnuts. You start to lick your lips and, before you know it, you’re raiding your cupboards for anything to satisfy this desperate need. The fact that you had dinner less than an hour ago is irrelevant. In fact, you feel as if you’ve been starved for months.

WHAT’S GOING ON?

It should be easy to tell if you’re hungry, but that often isn’t the case: there are so many things that can masquerade as hunger. Author of Eat What You Love, Love What You Eat Dr Michelle May refers to this issue as ‘“head hunger” – confusing wanting to eat with needing to eat’.

Knowing when you’re actually hungry and need to feed yourself as opposed to when your mind is just playing tricks on you can be a huge challenge.

People have long dealt with the temptation to eat, but these days it’s even harder to resist because fast foods and sugary treats are so readily available. Dr Janice Hillman, a physician at Penn Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine Radnor, says, ‘Even though your body is a fairly skilled communicator, it can be easy to misinterpret its cues.’

To maintain a healthy weight and take care of our health, it’s imperative to learn the difference between real hunger and common eating triggers, like the smell of freshly baked bread, or the chocolates in the sweet aisle en route to the till.