Various Types of Hunger: Honoring Your Body's Needs
Written by ‘Ai Pono Hawaii Staff Writer
In diet culture, and especially while sitting at home ten feet away from the kitchen cabinets during COVID-19 closures, there has been a lot of speculation about the various types of hunger. There's also debate about which hunger signals are "valid" and which ones are not.
For example, you've probably heard "wellness" influencers and "health and fitness" bloggers all ask something along the lines of:
Are you hungry, or are you just bored?
Are you sure it's not just stress that's making you feel hungry?
Is that dessert "worth it" just because you're craving it?
Do you really want to eat the food just because it looks or smells good?
Related: This is how to deal with fatphobia during and after COVID-19.
On the surface, the purpose of asking these questions is to increase your mindfulness when it comes to food, but a lot of diet-focused influencers and companies ask these questions as a way to stop their followers from honoring all their different types of hunger. The end result is, of course, a restrictive diet and weight loss — which is exactly what diet culture wants you to do.
They've taken the intuitive eating principle of mindfulness and twisted it into a guide for restricting food and ignoring hunger. But you do not have to ignore your hunger.
Read on to learn:
The four main types of hunger
How and why we experience each type of hunger
Why all forms of hunger you feel are valid
How to identify which kind of hunger you are experiencing
How to practice intuitive eating, a way of eating that honors all the hunger you feel
If you take anything away from this article, let it be this: That snack or takeout meal or dessert you get hungry just thinking about? That hunger is valid. Go get that thing you're thinking of.
Related: Mindfulness isn't the only wellness concept the diet industry has used to sell products. Read up on detoxing, another concept being used to sell products and meal plans.
Physical Hunger
Physical hunger is the body's way of signaling that it needs fuel. Just like the mouth and lips feel dry when the body needs water, or the bladder extends and causes discomfort, the body produces physical hunger symptoms to signal physical needs.
What does physical hunger feel like?
This may sound like a silly question. Just about everyone was born with hunger and fullness cues, so everyone should know the answer, right?
But that's not quite true, especially for people who suffer from an eating disorder. Eating disorders can throw off hunger and fullness cues. So interpreting physical sensations as hunger can get challenging.
If you're experiencing physical hunger, you might:
Feel a gnawing in your stomach
Experience fatigue or general tiredness
Get a headache
Feel weak or shaky
Feel anxious
Salivate in response to food
Start sweating
Get angry or annoyed easily
Feel nauseous
Have difficulty concentrating
Many sufferers of eating disorders try to deny their hunger. They may think they're "just thirsty or tired," when in reality, they just need to honor their physical needs.
Emotional Hunger
Emotional hunger is the kind of hunger that sparks from an unmet emotional need.
Emotional hunger may:
Come on suddenly, whereas physical hunger cues build up over time
Show up after an emotional moment or situation, and is often very strong
Present as a craving for a specific food, such as dense carbohydrates
Present as a craving for something "meaningful," such as a childhood favorite food or a special dessert
Exist mainly "in your head"
Emotional eating, also known as "stress eating," is highly frowned upon in diet culture. The diet industry has labeled emotional hunger as invalid. They put forth the idea that if you satisfy your emotional hunger, you are "weak." Diet culture believes that if you engage in emotional eating, you will binge eat. And you will definitely develop binge eating disorder.
Related: You are not "weak" for binging after restriction. Learn why and how to break the vicious binge-restrict cycle.
Emotional Eating vs. Binge Eating: They are not the same
Emotional eating is a method of coping with stress and other uncomfortable emotions. But that's okay in moderation.
For example, say you have a terrible day at work. It's completely fine to pick up an ice cream cone on the way home as a treat after so much stress. Or say a friend has just lost a loved one. It's normal to bring them comfort food in such a distressing time. In fact, bringing food to a grieving family is a tradition in many cultures.
The difference between constructive emotional eating to lift your emotions, and binge eating, is choice. It's okay to mindfully choose a snack or meal you know will make you feel better. It's okay to choose food as a coping skill sometimes.
The problem arises when:
Food is your only coping skill
You eat mindlessly, without listening to your body's fullness cues at all
You become uncomfortably full
Food becomes your go-to response to every emotion, including boredom or apathy
You eat in response to emotions at all intensity levels
Guilt becomes a constant after emotional eating
Eating becomes problematic or even addictive
It's completely fine to honor your emotional hunger, but you need a variety of coping skills to handle your upcoming stressors. As the old saying goes: "Too much of any good thing is a bad thing."
Related: This is why and how to identify what you're really feeling (because "fat" does not count as a feeling.)
Sensory Hunger
Sensory hunger happens in response to seeing, smelling, hearing, or thinking about a specific food. Sensory hunger can make you salivate at the mouth, especially when you smell appetizing food. You may not always feel physical and sensory hunger at the same time — but sensory hunger is just as valid!
For example, you may not feel physically hungry after a meal, but if you "get a taste" for something on the dessert menu, you should get it!
Related: Is the idea of a dessert menu, or eating out in general, terrifying? Exposure therapy can help you overcome your fears and go out with family and friends!
Practical or Anticipatory Hunger
Practical or anticipatory hunger is not a hunger you feel in the moment. It happens in situations where you know you will be hungry, but will not have easy access to food later on.
It's basically the food equivalent of going to the bathroom before a long car ride. You might not have really needed to use the restroom at the moment. But you still go, since you don't know when exactly you'll get another chance.
Anticipatory eating is very common during travel, before periods of fasting (for religious reasons, various tests or medical procedures, etc.) and before exams or performances. You will need your strength later on, even if you don't feel physical hunger at the moment. Honor your anticipatory hunger now, before you're physically weak or unfocused later on.
Related: You have to listen to practical hunger cues to travel and maintain eating disorder recovery.
Intuitive Eating: Honoring All Types of Hunger
Intuitive eating is, in part, eating when you're hungry and stopping when you're full. It's very much the kind of eating you did when you were a child. At that time, you didn't judge your body, your food choices, or how often you ate.
Honoring your hunger (all forms of hunger)
Discovering what satisfaction and satiety means to you
Enjoying food with others, at appropriate times and places
Eating what you're really craving without any judgment or diet talk
Related: Read more about how letting go of food rules is really a way of gaining control over eating.
In the end, intuitive eating is about trusting your body. It may take a little while to successfully recognize and honor the various types of hunger you experience, but once you learn to listen to your body, and withhold any food or size related judgment, intuitive eating becomes as natural as it was when you were a child.
If you or a loved one is suffering from an eating disorder, take the first step today and talk to someone about recovery or simply learn more about the holistic eating disorder recovery programs we offer.