Appetite and Food Intake: Behavioral and Physiological Considerations PDF

Preface

Globally, there are more than 1 billion obese people and another 800 million are chronically undernourished. Nearly 30,000 (half of them children) die everyday from malnutrition. In more affluent nations, these problems are exacerbated by eating disorders and food insecurity. In the United States, as many as 10 million females and 1 million males have an eating disorder such as anorexia or bulimia. Approximately 25 million more have binge eating disorder. An estimated 35.1 million people live in households deemed food insecure and 10.8 million are considered food insecure with hunger. These problems stem from the interplay of political, economic, agricultural, nutritional, psychological, physiological, and social forces. Of course, each of these areas is also multifaceted, but all intersect on one key point: all influence ingestive behavior (when, where, what, and how much we choose to eat). As a result, expertise in each of these areas must be brought to bear on the problem of malnutrition (i.e., under- and overnutrition). This book focuses on the psychological and biological determinants of feeding, the governing influences when food availability is not limiting.

When asked to edit a book on food intake, the editors believed it was an opportunity not only to develop a volume that summarizes current knowledge of the factors that guide food selection and consumption, but to do so in a way that highlights the synergies and gaps between approaches using animal models or human trials. As you read the book, you will come across pairs of chapters that address the same topic, but are surprisingly diverse in their interpretation of scientific knowledge. These different perspectives are often complimentary to one another but also provide the reader with an appreciation of advantages and limitations that are provided by clinical/applied versus basic research. We hope that this will leave researchers working at different levels along this continuum with a greater appreciation of the challenges that each face and where future efforts, hopefully collaborations, may be most productive and challenging.

The organization of the book is such that we start with whether, or not, there are mechanisms that control food intake and the role played by appetitive cues. Next, preingestive motivational, cognitive, and orosensory processes that influence food acquisition, as well as the processing of ingesta, are considered. This is followed by chapters addressing intestinal, and postabsorptive signaling systems and metabolism. The final contributions focus on the micro- and macronutrient composition of foods linked to ingestive behavior and the physiologic consequences of consumption. The chapters are contributed by scientists who are driving current research and thinking on each of these topics. The range of topics discussed in this book highlights the diverse nature of food intake research, ranging from cellular neurobiology to measures of human behavior. This is an ever-evolving area of study that continues to incorporate more disciplines as the complexity of the reward and appetitive systems continues to unravel. As you progress through the book, it will also become apparent that there is some overlap in the topics that are discussed by each author, reflecting how complex the interactions are between different processes that influence food choice and consumption.

We anticipate that this book will be a useful reference tool for individuals who range from experts in the field to those who are simply interested in how an individual decides what foods to eat and how much to eat. In addition, this should be a useful overview for graduate students entering the field as a specialization and to others in professions, such as nursing or dietetics, where the greater emphasis is on translating the science into practice. Making appropriate food choices and maintaining an adequate intake is a perennial challenge to the survival of all organisms. More recently, the problems of inappropriate food choices and overconsumption have become major global health issues. Therefore, understanding how food intake is determined has important practical and economic implications at the individual and population levels. The information in this book summarizes current understanding of how the environment, food composition, and individual physiological status influence our food choices.