Hunger Studies 1

People speak of "World Hunger", and don't realize how vague they are being.

There are three different kinds of hunger, quite different from each other.

Simple Hunger: This is what we feel when our stomach is empty. Most of us are familiar with this one, and know that it is pretty easy to ignore for a while. It is known worldwide, but can hardly be considered a problem.

Systemic Hunger: This is what we feel when our blood sugar is low. It is felt in the body in general, rather than in the stomach. This is not easy to ignore, but is not always recognized as a need for food. Systemic hunger is a problem in parts of the world where people cannot lead a regular lifestyle, and eat erratically. It can cause anxiety and hysteria.

In parts of Africa, rashes of young women being struck down with screaming fits were found to be easily cured by an injection of glucose. Widespread systemic hunger may be behind many unstable cultural situations, an unrecognized disruptive influence.

Survival Hunger: This is felt when the body's fat reserves are depleted. It is as imperative a need for food as the need for air. This hunger can NOT be ignored*. Our bodies need at least a little internal fat to get through a night's sleep without having to get up and take in more calories. Very few people in a stable culture have felt this.

People who deliberately keep their body fat low have felt it briefly. Ballerinas and fashion models report having sudden binges of eating everything they can get their hands on. Body builders sometimes find themselves skipping the protein shake, and gorging on something deep-fried.

This starvation is usually what people mean when they say "World Hunger". However, it is not something that can be solved by throwing food at it. Since the industrial era, all famines are caused by politics, not nature. The demands of survival would drive these people toward food, unless they were stopped by another deadly threat, such as the point of a gun.




*Anorexia is an emotional disorder in which the sufferer seems to ignore survival hunger. They are not ignoring it. They are feeling it as a sense of accomplishment, or in some other distorted way that allows them to continue refusing food.