2. By: Melissa Emma Katie Bages Drew Corrigan

3. What is the physiology of hunger? The pangs of an empty stomach are a source of hunger. Appetite is heightened by an increase of Ghrelin. –Ghrelin is a hunger arousing hormone secreted by an empty stomach.

4. Body Chemistry and the Brain Chemicals help “keep tabs” on the body’s caloric intake. –Glucose is blood sugar. –Insulin is a hormone that converts glucose into stored fat. –Hunger will increase if the level of glucose drops. –The body will subconsciously signal your brain to motivate eating. Orexin is a hunger triggering hormone. PYY is a digestive tract hormone that sends “I’m not hungry” signals to the brain.

5. Body Chemistry and the Brain cont. The hypothalamus center helps control eating. The lateral hypothalamus brings on the hunger. Vertromedial hypothalamus depresses hunger and is located in the lower mid- hypothalamus, if area is stimulated you will stop eating. If body rises above your “set point” (a predisposed set weight one is to maintain), you will tend to feel less hungry; if your weight drops below, you will usually eat more.

6. Psychology of Hunger Paul Rozin’s study: 1998Paul Rozin’s study: 1998 –Testing two patients with amnesia because their memory was ghastly. They had no memory of events occurring more than a minute before hand. –After being asked to eat three consecutive meals 20 mins. apart they ate because they had no memory of eating the past meal. –This indicated that knowing when to eat has to deal with memory of when one ate last.

7. Obesity and Weight control 65% of Americans are overweight declare Centers for Disease Control. Good fat Provides stored energy to reserve high-calorie fuel. Some cultures see obesity as being attractive. Bad fat Nowadays where food is more plentiful storing fat has become maladaptive. Causes most of the top health problems. Problems: Diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, gallstones, arthritis, sleep disorders, death, and certain types of cancer. Risks are different for every individual depending on body shape.

8. Social Effects of Obesity Obesity can both effect how one treats themselves and how they’re treated. Many misconceptions are formed about obesity The typical stereotypes: –Slow, lazy and sloppy. Regina Pingitore –Led experiment where most participants preferred slim models to the overweight models. –Some rated them in meaner and more obnoxious way. –Her findings proved that weight discrimination is greater than race and gender discrimination and occurs everywhere. Most people who lose weight would rather go to extremes than gain back the weight they lost.

9. Physiology of Obesity Most diets that people follow are putting them under false pretenses. Fat cells: To determine body fat you first need to find the size and number of body fat cells. Most adults have about 30 billion. The fat cell will inflate like balloon and divide. Fat cells may shrink on a diet but never disappear.

10. Set points and Metabolism fat tissue has a low metabolic rate –it takes less food energy to maintain Bray –Held an experiment to see how metabolism works in the body and how the body uses stored energy. –Cut down an obese person’s calorie intake from 3500 to 450. They only lost about 6% of their weight because their metabolic rates dropped about 15% –These findings lead to the conclusion that the body adapts to starvation by burning off fewer calories. »In the case of extra calories, the body will burn off more. –This is due to the “weight thermostat” »An obese person must maintain a higher-than-average increase in hunger. »An underweight person will have their hunger increased and their metabolism will decrease. most overweight people are just normal people whose bodies predispose them to weigh more

11. Genetic Factor Studies of adopted children and twins show a genetic influence on body weight. –People’s weights resemble those of their biological parents. –Most twins have similar weights even when they are not together Genes determine how efficiently one burns calories or converts them to fat. Obesity is 6 times more common in America rather than Europe –Most believe this is due to fast-food, serving sizes, and lack of exercise in the US –Compared with the 1900 Americans, diabetes and other health risks are much higher now –Since 1980 adult obesity rates have almost tripled to 21% Since being overweight is becoming a norm public places and facilities have compensated by increasing their seat size

12. Losing Weight Drastic surgeries or diets, in the end, do not work because most people will regain the weight back. –However, diets that modify one’s life style do usually work for awhile but the weight will inevitably come back. –Most dieters are women, but in teens and adults. This is all because once the body attains fat cells it wants to feed them Having lost weight, formally obese people’s fat cells may be abnormally too small, their metabolism slowed, and they will constantly think about food.