When the feeling of hunger is mentioned, what comes to mind is the brain producing some hormones and directing the person to eat when the blood sugar level drops below a certain level after a few hours after the last food intake. However, in some cases, people may crave sweet or fatty foods even after eating. At this point, hedonic hunger comes into play.
What is hedonic hunger?
The human body continues its life with the calories taken into the body from food intake. When the calories consumed are burned as energy and there are no more calories to be spent, the brain begins to be stimulated. This warning is an extremely normal flow and is expressed as ‘physical hunger’. However, when ‘Hedonic hunger’ is mentioned, a form of nutrition that only addresses desire and emotional need comes to mind, rather than a biological hunger.
As a result of the studies, it has been determined that many people have this feeling and feel the urge to eat due to gaining motivation. This is determined by the nutritional power scale, also known as the hedonic hunger scale.
What are the factors affecting hedonic hunger?
One of the causes of hedonic hunger is the stimulation of the pleasure and reward parts of the brain. These arousals pass after eating delicious and pleasurable foods at very frequent intervals. Especially in hedonic nutrition, when these foods that are in the harmful category and provide pleasure are consumed repeatedly, a cycle of wanting them and eating them again for the pleasure they provide may arise.
Another factor that causes hedonic hunger is the easy availability of pleasurable, non-healthy, delicious foods. However, food advertisements also increase the need to eat these foods. Factors affecting hedonic hunger can be listed as follows:
- Anxiety and psychiatric disorders
- Hormones
- Social media and advertisements
- Obesity
In hedonic hunger and obesity research; It has been determined that people with obesity show more hedonic hunger symptoms than those without obesity.
Hedonic hunger treatment
In order to control hedonic hunger, it can be extremely useful to find out why the desire for unhealthy foods originates and is triggered. These triggers can be stress, boredom, or certain places and situations.