To study the different ways in which we eat, specifically regarding food intake, various fields of study and research rely on evaluating eating behaviors through questionnaires designed to measure these conducts. To formulate a questionnaire as a validated research tool, concepts and theoretical frameworks are developed to name eating patterns or, more specifically, behaviors that respond to certain conditions.
Within this process, definitions are created for concepts related to eating patterns, attempting to conceptualize a behavior. Thus emerges the definition of "hedonic hunger," which refers to the desire to consume food for pleasure, in the absence of an energy deficit. In other words, it is a "hunger" not driven by the need for calories, but by a basis of pleasure. This concept connects the body's biological needs for maintaining homeostasis with psychological and neurological mechanisms, such as the concept of pleasure. And within each of these concepts, there are challenges in precisely defining the mechanisms involved.
For example, the need to eat due to a caloric deficit is a mechanism for keeping the body alive, but once that hunger is satisfied, pleasure mechanisms in the brain can also be activated. On the other hand, so-called hedonic hunger—that is, hunger not resulting from food deprivation—does not always generate a sensation of pleasure and may be a hunger produced by other processes, such as emotional processing that can lead to anxiety. In an anxious state, one can experience all kinds of sensations, but hedonism is not necessarily a characteristic of these states. Therefore, these concepts are useful insofar as they attempt to measure and conceptualize certain behaviors.
It is very difficult to frame all the stimuli and variables to which we respond with food intake within conceptual frameworks that can be rigid compared to real-life examples. Hedonic hunger, in colloquial language for many, is the need to snack, "gusguear" (as it is called in some regions of Mexico), nibble, etc. Many of these food intakes are modulated by occasions that respond to a specific social context or events where the need to eat does not directly stem from a caloric deficit.
In the obesogenic context of contemporary societies, some approaches that study hedonic hunger consider it a factor that can lead to weight gain. But isolating a variable in this way only ignores the complexity of the issue. Precisely because of the context, food intake is moderated on some occasions and promoted on others. Isolating the concept of hunger to a matter of caloric deficit is an attempt to simplify all the mechanisms and variables involved not only in food intake, but also in food selection and quantity.
Daily food intake does not necessarily respond to a sensation of "biological" hunger, and this is not necessarily incorrect. Life rhythms and work hours also determine our eating times, and in turn, our bodies adapt to these schedules. Reducing the act of eating to energy intake indiscriminately ignores the multiplicity of factors involved in the process.
— This article was originally published in Spanish by Liliana Martínez Lomelí. Translation generated with AI from the original text.
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