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Sadness or depression can play a role, causing changes in appetite, digestion, energy level, weight, and well-being. [222] A study on the relationship between malnutrition and other conditions in the elderly found that malnutrition in the elderly can result from gastrointestinal and endocrine system disorders, loss of taste and smell, decreased ...
Starvation is a severe deficiency in caloric energy intake, below the level needed to maintain an organism's life. It is the most extreme form of malnutrition.In humans, prolonged starvation can cause permanent organ damage [1] and eventually, death.
Overeating occurs when an individual consumes more calories in relation to the energy that is expended via physical activity or expelled via excretion, leading to weight gain and often obesity. Overeating is the defining characteristic of binge eating disorder. [1] Overeating can be a symptom of binge eating disorder or bulimia nervosa. [2] [1]
The environment of early humans shaped the evolution of ingestive regulatory mechanisms, starvation used to be a greater threat to survival than overeating. [3] Human metabolism evolved to store energy within the body to prevent death from starvation. Today, the environment now has an opposite effect on humans eating behaviors.
The desire to eat food, or appetite, is another sensation experienced with regard to eating. [ 3 ] The term hunger is also the most commonly used in social science and policy discussions to describe the condition of people who suffer from a chronic lack of sufficient food and constantly or frequently experience the sensation of hunger, and can ...
Starvation response in animals (including humans) is a set of adaptive biochemical and physiological changes, triggered by lack of food or extreme weight loss, in which the body seeks to conserve energy by reducing metabolic rate and/or non-resting energy expenditure to prolong survival and preserve body fat and lean mass.
Compulsive overeating, or emotional eating, is "the tendency to eat in response to negative emotions". [18] Empirical studies have indicated that anxiety leads to decreased food consumption in people with normal weight and increased food consumption in the obese .
Appetite is the desire to eat food items, usually due to hunger. Appealing foods can stimulate appetite even when hunger is absent, although appetite can be greatly reduced by satiety. [1] Appetite exists in all higher life-forms, and serves to regulate adequate energy intake to maintain metabolic needs.