Beh/225 Week 5 Eating Disorders

Eating Disorders

BEH/225

September 21, 2014

Eating Disorders

Every person knows the feeling of being hungry. When a person feels hungry, they find food, eat it, and feel better. But what drives hunger? Hunger is driven by both internal and external factors; there is a need that causes a drive, followed by a response and a goal. A person’s behavior can also control their eating habits and potential eating disorders. Behavior plays a large role in how a person handles their hunger.

When you get hungry, you feel pangs in your stomach that tell you it’s time to eat, or you may get weak feeling and shaky, but this is not the primary sign of hunger. The hypothalamus regulates hunger and acts as a feeding system that initiates hunger. This gland in our bodies also tells us when we’ve had enough food and to stop. When a person feels hunger that is their drive to find food, the hypothalamus is usually the force behind the drive.

Some of the external factors that in hunger are: eating cues, taste, emotions, culture, and dieting. Eating cues are signs and signals that link directly to eating such as the immediate availability of food. You may not be hungry, but the food in front of you is easily accessible and therefore you eat it. The amount of tasty foods can also have an effect on a person’s eating habits and hunger. A person can also develop taste aversions to certain foods and will not eat those. Taste controls hunger in many ways because a person may overeat if it is something that they find extremely tasty. There are also those that eat based on their emotions; when they are sad they will eat more ice cream even if they aren’t hungry. Culture provides different options based on where a person lives, and the choices can be rather strange compared to the food in North America.

All of these external factors can lead a person to an eating disorder. There are those that overeat based on taste or eating cues that signal a desire to eat that food,...