Miriam Frankel and Matt Warren, science journalists, and authors of Are You Thinking Clearly? share how hunger can affect our brains.
According to them, though diets are widely celebrated as the noble, often celebrity-endorsed, route towards improved health and wellness, dieting can be miserable.
A study of almost 2,000 overweight and obese people who wanted to lose weight found that those who managed to do so were nearly 80% more likely to have symptoms of depression than those who didn’t.
They pointed out that being hungry can mess with our minds in manifold ways – by making us “hangry”, that feeling of rage that manifests when it’s been too long between meals.
In nations like Sudan and Nigeria, where many people face starvation, hunger can boost inequality. One study found that the provision of school meals in Indian schools improved the cognitive performance of students by 13% to 16%.
“Without sufficient nutrients and calories, it is hardly surprising our brains might struggle to develop and function properly.” They added.
Doomscrolling on our phones while hungry can aggravate negative feelings.
In a 2022 study, psychologist Nienke Jonker and colleagues from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands asked 129 women – with half of them fasting for 14 hours – they were questioned about their hunger level, eating habits, and mood. They found that the hungry women reported more negative emotions, including higher tension, anger, depression, fatigue, and confusion. They also reported lower positive emotions, such as vigor.
Miriam Frankel and Matt Warren explained that low mood can radically change how we interpret the world. If [we] are in a negative mood, then [we] remember negative things better which may put [us] in an even worse mood. This negative framing [leads] to errors in interpreting our surroundings – [which causes] us to see the world in simplistic black-and-white terms and miss the all-important nuance.
When we feel down, we also pay more attention to negative details than positive ones, which may make us feel bad about ourselves and wary of others.
