Are you sure you're hungry?

Are you hungry or are you thirsty? Are you hungry or are you bored? Are you hungry or are you tired? And if you are hungry, have you tried ignoring it? What are you, a human that needs food to live?

“I don’t know why I’m so hungry, I just ate.” This is the start of a conversation that I once had with a coworker. Here’s the setting: it was about 11:00 AM, and we had just come out of a 2-hour meeting. On our way back to our cubicles, my coworker held her hands over her stomach, saying that she felt her stomach growling. This was before I was a dietitian and was working in fashion, but even back then, I knew this was a signal that the body needed food. I asked her if she was going to grab an early lunch because I would absolutely join her, and that’s when she looked at me, puzzled. Absolutely not, as it was “too early for lunch,” and as stated above, “she just ate.” And you are probably wondering what this meal was that she “just ate.” Friends, it was a container of Activia yogurt that she had early in the morning. Yes, that was the meal in question that left her puzzled as to why she might still be hungry and, in actuality, denying her hunger altogether.

Photo by Siegfried Poepperl on Unsplash

This isn’t a unique case because it is not lost on me how the concept of eating is treated as a taboo subject. You can Google how to suppress your hunger, and there will be hundreds of options on the search engine. Go for a walk. Drink some water. Chew some gum. Try any of those options because actually eating food to suppress your appetite is out of the question. *Sarcasm, but you get the idea* We are made to believe that we can’t possibly be as hungry as much as we think we are. We eat too much and are too consumed with food all the time apparently. Not to mention that we are also told that we have too many options of foods, AKA processed packaged foods, available to us, which is why we are always hungry and eat too much. Funny enough, we never talk about why we need processed foods, and that we live in a society that requires processed foods, and that there are many processed foods that are, in fact, nutritious… but I digress.

Here’s the thing: we need food in order to survive. Period point blank, and I know this sounds like a very “duh” thing to say, but I truly believe that we forget this sometimes. If we truly recognized that we needed to eat, why do we constantly see so much rhetoric telling us otherwise? We are told that we are bored, thirsty, tired, stressed, and not at all really hungry. And don’t get me wrong, we can indeed also be these things, but we can also very well be hungry. We are also made to feel as though there are certain times when we should eat only. Hence, in my story above about my coworker who didn’t want to eat “too early” for lunch at 11 AM. Who decides what times we have to abide by in order to consume food? Because I can tell you as a dietitian that our stomachs and digestive systems don’t have an open and close time. Our bodies are constantly working, thank goodness.

I constantly talk about how food represents so many different aspects and is not limited to just providing nutrients, but what if I also told you that there are different types of hunger? We recognize the physical feeling, but that is not the only time we consume food. You may have heard of different types of hunger from many sources, as there are many different ideas about this concept. If you are familiar with the anti-diet space, you might recognize the names Elyse Resch and Evelyn Tribole, the registered dietitians and authors who put Intuitive Eating on the map, who also talk about this concept. But what do these concepts actually mean?

*Disclaimer - I am not a certified Intuitive Eating counselor for personal reasons I have chosen and will talk about at another time, but I still respect the concepts*

Physical Hunger

This is what most people think of when they think of the word “hunger.” The feelings of a growling stomach, headaches, tiredness, brain fog, having trouble concentrating, and, of course, just being hangry, probably come to mind. This is the feeling that we most recognize and acknowledge, and most of us who feel these symptoms then go about finding some food to feed ourselves. This is the type of hunger that is the most acknowledged and the one where we are told, “It’s okay to eat now.” But alas, there are others.

Taste Hunger

Think about a time when you weren’t physically hungry but still wanted food. Of course, this happens, and we’re told that this feeling is wrong, but why should it be? Was there a time that you smelled your roommate, friend, spouse, or whoever cooking or baking, and you were eager to try a bite because it smelled so delicious? Yes, I think we’ve all been there. If someone is baking cookies, you better believe I want a taste. You aren’t hungry, but a certain food, at a certain time, sounds good, and you want to eat. Usually, when this happens, we might mutter, “I’m being so bad right now,” or “No, I shouldn’t.” This is when diet culture comes into the picture, continually telling us we’re bad for eating.

Emotional Hunger

Of all the different hunger categories, this one is the one that’s probably the most demonized by society. “Stop eating your feelings,” we’re told. Emotional hunger is eating to satisfy an emotional need, and many folks assign moral value (“I’m bad for eating xyz”) to emotional eating. I’m about to say something shocking in that eating to satisfy emotional needs is not an inherently bad thing. Food is many things and one of those things is comfort. Now, do I believe that food should be the only form of comfort? No. But it can be a way to cope with emotions in the short term. This isn’t inherently wrong, and I think we need to stop demonizing this in society. 

Practical Hunger

There are times when my day is going to be full of errands (yes, that includes Target and other various places). And because I know that I’ll be running around all day and also knowing that there aren’t going to be a ton of choices to grab food, I eat beforehand. Am I hungry when I’m eating before the errands? No, not always, especially in the mornings. However, this is what practical hunger is; we need to eat even in the absence of our hunger cues because we might not have a chance to eat again for a while. This is incredibly important for those who take medications that suppress their appetites and need to still eat when they are stressed and aren’t hungry but still need to eat, and/or those who have hectic schedules and are on the go. One past client was a newscaster, and she “lived in a van,” chasing stories all day. Stopping to eat was far and few between, so we had to work on eating, even when she wasn’t physically hungry.

So now, what do we do with this information?

Well, for starters, it’s going to take time to undo society’s teaching of “it’s wrong to eat food.” My advice is to give yourself not only permission to eat in the form of any of these types of hunger but also to give yourself grace. Being a human is hard, and one of the things that can make it extremely difficult is not trusting ourselves. No, it’s not as easy as “just listen to your body” (one of the many reasons I chose not to become an intuitive eating counselor) because our body sometimes malfunctions under certain conditions, but we can recognize that we are human, and imperfect. In fact, there is no such thing as perfect eating. I personally don’t believe in perfection as a whole, but I know for a fact that perfect eating doesn’t exist. And guess what? That is more than okay. We can do what works for us and, in finding that, make a few stumbles along the way. But one thing is for sure: we need food, and it doesn’t just have to be limited for survival.

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Like what you just read, or maybe you have more questions on the topic? This is a friendly reminder that I wrote a book on this topic and much more. Live Nourished is available for preorder now! Please click this link to get your copy.