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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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