The human appetite is causing an invisible crisis that is hard to realize until you truly understand it. There are a plethora of starving bodies on this planet, and people might not even realize it.
Weight Loss
Many people concentrate on losing weight without really understanding what causes their bodies to gain weight in the first place. You can quickly be starving and pack on an extra few pounds and not even realize it.
How can someone be considered "overweight" and starving simultaneously? A body can easily be starved of essential vitamins & minerals and store extra body fat. When your body is storing energy for later, it is doing this because it is in a state of preservation.
Thinking of problems like hunger & starvation, it's effortless to localize those problems to "poor communities" worldwide. It's easier to associate a starving person with skin and bones. The reality is much more complicated than that.
The human appetite is causing an invisible crisis that is hard to realize until you truly understand it. There are many starving bodies on this planet, and people might not even know it.
People are starving all over.
People are starving worldwide, and they come in all shapes and sizes. Around the world, we crave things in our diet that help contributes to blind starvation.
Blind starvation is starvation without realizing you're actually starving. It's a widespread experience.
If you break down the word starvation, realizing what is happening right now is a bit scary. Starvation is defined as a state of suffering or dying of hunger.
So what does that mean?
Hunger can be defined as a condition where someone cannot maintain basic nutritional needs for a sustained period. Hunger isn't really so much about being fed. Sometimes a hungry body might not be so obvious. In fact, you can eat an entire "meal" and still not maintain basic nutritional needs for a sustained period.
Ramen Noodle Diet
Ever heard of the ramen noodle diet? This diet consists of high content of sodium and a faster starvation rate.
There seems to be an abundant amount of food with a low nutritional value. When you stand in line at the gas station, it's effortless to notice all the color packages screaming "EAT MEEEEE". Sometimes quick, effortless, and easy is the exact thing that is destroying the body.
Healthy food does not have to be expensive. It just takes some more time and thinking in a grocery store. If you're a poor college kid, you don't have to live off of ramen noodles. How about a can of sardines next time?
When you take a walk in a store, it's so easy to buy the first thing that pops out at you. Grocery stores are stocked full of products designed to grab your attention. Those products might not be providing the nutritional value that you need.
Addiction and Starvation
Many people fall for the trap of eating foods that provide almost no nutritional value.
Candy is one of the first things we are introduced to that fall into that category. States even consider candy as a food and food ingredient. Candy is not food, and it doesn't really contain much nutritional value. In fact, candy is usually loaded with sugar.
When you consume large amounts of sugar, you begin to disrupt the body's homeostasis. Sugar is psychoactive, and it can be highly addictive too. The ramifications of that can be detrimental to our health. Our bodies can make it's own sugar when fueled with the proper nutrients. Glycogenesis is the body's process to create its own sugars. High sugar diets can interfere with glycogenolysis.
The psychoactive effects of sugar train the brain to expect a significant release of dopamine every time you eat. This pushes people to expect that dopamine release whenever food is introduced. You can easily observe this behavior in children. When you start expecting that dopamine hit when you eat, it becomes a lot easier to fuel your body with the things that provide that same dopamine hit, in return starving the body of the things it actually needs.
Addiction can be one of the biggest blockers to proper nutrition.
Fight or Flight
Ever seen someone addicted to cocaine go through withdrawal symptoms? A similar process happens when the body is addicted to sugar. When your body is in danger, it will respond. Sometimes that response can be pretty catastrophic. A starving body will be in a constant state of fight or flight.
When your body becomes starved of vital nutrients, it begins to go into a state of preservation. Fight or flight is wired in our bodies to bring us to a state of preservation. If a lion is chasing you, the quicker you can fight or flight, the quicker you have a chance to survive. When the body is used to being in a fight or flight state, it begins to prepare itself for the next time there might be a threat.
What about the threats that come from within our bodies? Diets high in sugar can trigger these fight or flight states pretty easily. Scientists call this glucose allostasis, which is a result of insulin resistance.
When insulin resistance occurs, the body's cells don't respond to insulin in a typical manner; as a result, glucose can't enter the cells as quickly, so it builds up in the blood. When this process is initiated, it takes your body more sugar to function properly. This can increase blood sugar dips, resulting in the fight or flight response.
To reverse this process, you simply need to refuel the body with the essential nutrients to reach homeostasis.
What can we do?
The first thing we can do is remind ourselves not to be so afraid. Sometimes problems seem like they can't be solved, but all it really takes is a bit of positivity.
By acknowledging our problems in the first place, we can begin to understand them. As of writing this, I can tell you that I still love some glazed donuts with a bag full of bugs right after. Sometimes it's not as simple as making drastic and immediate changes to our lives. We don't have to fight ourselves, and we sure don't have to fight each other.
Start making simple changes in your life. Thinking about the nutritional value of your food can be a simple change in your life that you can start making right now. Ask yourself, what is in the food I'm about to eat? Will it give me the energy I need?
The last thing, let's redefine what it means to be starving. Our bodies need so much more than we give them, and we owe it to ourselves to start the challenge of finding new food sources. People are starving of all shapes and sizes, and we need to recognize that.
