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Explainer | Hunger vs appetite: what’s the difference? How understanding this can help manage your desire to eat
- Despite both being driven by hormones, appetite and hunger are different, and determined by need vs want. There’s a good way to differentiate between them
- A balanced diet with the right nutrients satisfies our appetite, a nutritionist says. We share five ways to increase your appetite and five ways to control it
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While unwell recently, my appetite abandoned me, which is unusual for a person like me whose appetite is normally begging for attention. I was interested to monitor its return – over a week or so – and it raised the questions: what is appetite, what drives it and what kills it?
While you need an appetite to inspire hunger, appetite and hunger are different. Hunger is physiological: our brain signals the need for fuel and our body exhibits the signs that we are hungry – a rumbling tummy, or feeling faint from lack of food.
Appetite, on the other hand, is the desire, rather than the need, to eat. It may be linked to hunger but it can also be associated with stress, boredom or the scent or sight of food.
Both hunger and appetite are driven by hormones. Leptin, made by fat cells, lowers appetite; ghrelin, produced in the gut – and nicknamed the hunger hormone for this reason – increases it.
The bloodstream carries these hormones into the hypothalamus, the small, almond-shaped engine room deep in your brain. It helps regulate body temperature, heart rate, sex drive, thirst, your sleep cycle, hunger – and by extension, exercises weight control.
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