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The sensation of appetite is so complex that it has to be discussed
with hunger to be fully understood. Although appetite and hunger
are closely related, they are different and distinct from each
other.
The desire for food is appetite while hunger
is the sensation caused by fairly frequent and rhythmic contractions
of the empty stomach, thus causing a desire for food. Appetite
may be a consequence of hunger, but it does not always follow.
Studies on man and animals have given us a
scientific basis for the conclusion that there is a selective
mechanism which controls eating, which functions through appetite
or the desire for food.
Careful observations show that appetite encompasses psychic
factors and may be brought about not only by hunger.
There can be appetite without hunger. An attractive,
tasty meal may arouse the desire to eat even after all hunger
has been appeased. We continue to eat because of the acquired
liking for certain foods and of the memory of pleasant experiences
with food. Some factors that may influence appetite are:
1) Food of attractive color and aroma.
2) Food attractively prepared and served.
3) Food containing a reasonable amount of fat.
4) Emotions, pleasant company, and general
state of happiness.
The desire for food or appetite and sensations
of hunger are signals which maintain the bodily supply of nutrients
and operate for the welfare of the individual and the race.
Experts in nutrition speak of the appetite and hunger as regulating
mechanism, as the stop and go feature indispensable for race
survival. The hunger pain develops to give us a reliable impulse
for beginning our meals and the inner feeling of satisfaction
of satiety, tells us when to stop.
Abnormal Appetite – If a dietary is adequate
in quality and quantity of all nutriments, the healthy child
will not have an abnormal craving for sweets, especially sugar,
a food of high calorie value, but low in nutritive value. A
large amount of sugar stimulates the flow of fluid in the stomach
and the resulting volume of liquid may stop hunger contraction
with the consequent loss of appetite.
Food likes and dislikes enter into the feeing
of every family. Appetite is not an infallible guide to good
nutrition, as it is subject to prejudice and imitation and may
be altered by conditioning or learning. Appetites vary secondarily
with age, customs, temperature, and economic status.
Food and Allergy – Allergy is a condition of
hypersensitivity to certain substances which in the great majority
of human beings produces no ill effect. This may be caused in
one individual by a certain substance and by an entirely different
one in another. The most common allergy-producing foods are
milk, eggs, and cereals; next in order are fish, nuts, and pies.
There are no typical symptoms in allergies
as in a communicable disease, partly because very different
tissues of the body respond. Among the many symptoms are redness
and swelling of the eyes, running of the nose, headache, asthma,
such skin conditions as urticaria and eczema and gastrointestinal
disturbances as diarrhea and colic. Apparently, there is an
inherited tendency to allergy which is not specific.
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