“I feel hungry because I need food,” or “because I want to eat,” would
be the usual answer to this question. And yet a moment’s thought would
show us that these are no answers at all. Why do you want to eat?
Because you are hungry! We are in what is termed a “vicious circle” of
reasoning at once, in which we run around like a dog chasing its own
tail, and getting nowhere!
What is the real cause of hunger? In a certain sense, of course, it may
be said to be a general expression of craving on the part of the body
for food, in order to repair the wastes, due to exercise, etc. In one
sense, hunger is a general condition--the bodily cry for solid food,
just as thirst is the bodily cry for liquid of some sort. The tissues
need to be fed. And this cry finds its local expression in the stomach,
when it is empty.
But we must be careful to define just what we mean by hunger. There is
a true hunger and a false hunger--known to physiologists as “habit
hunger.” This often appears at meal times, just from habit, no matter
whether the body really needs food at all, or not. This is not true
hunger, or appetite: for if a glass of water be taken and the mind
diverted, this craving will soon disappear--which would be impossible
if true hunger were being manifested.
As soon as the stomach is really empty, slight muscular contractions
begin to take place. These pass like waves or ripples across the
stomach, and increase in frequency and violence the longer food is
withheld. These contractions are what we feel, and know as “the pangs
of hunger.” They are the local cry of the stomach for food. We feel
this craving in the stomach, and also bodily craving. Together, they
make up the set of symptoms known as hunger, and it is because of them
that we feel “hungry.”