Physical Hunger Research Articles

Compulsive eating and gastric bypass surgery: what does hunger have to do with it?

Binge eating and other patterns of disordered eating in obese patients need further investigation. In a previous study by this author, one-third of patients presenting for bariatric surgery met strict criteria for Binge Eating Disorder. It is important to clarify the role of such eating behaviors on outcome of surgery to determine whether treatments targeted specifically at these behaviors and associated psychological issues can improve surgical outcome. The aim of this paper is to raise awareness of the range of disordered eating patterns in bariatric patients, describe an approach used, and discuss issues reported by patients after surgery. Patients completed questionnaires before surgery (QWEP, BES, BDI) and were seen for a pre-surgery mental health evaluation. High risk patients were identified and invited to attend a post-surgery group (CBT approach) as a preventive measure to help them deal with eating patterns as well as emotional adjustment. Disordered eating patterns can persist after surgery. While surgery may decrease actual physical hunger and reduce physical capacity for food, it is still possible to eat compulsively, although the patterns may change somewhat due to the surgical procedure. Since long-term weight maintenance depends on post-operative changes in eating behaviors, it is important to identify patients at risk for a range of disordered eating patterns so that a comprehensive treatment plan that targets the eating disturbances and associated psychological components can be implemented.

Social Exclusion and Selective Memory: How the Need to belong Influences Memory for Social Events

The need to belong has been forwarded as a pervasive human motive, influencing a range of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral responses. The current research explored the influence of belongingness needs on the selective retention of social information. Just as physical hunger results in selective memory for food-relevant stimuli, it was hypothesized that social hunger, aroused when belongingness needs were unmet, would result in selective memory for socially relevant stimuli. In two studies, the authors used a simulated computer chat room to present brief acceptance or rejection experiences to participants. Participants then read a diary containing both social and individual events. In both, rejection experiences resulted in selective memory for the explicitly social events of the diary. The implications of these results for the existence and consequences of a basic need to belong are discussed.

By the Walls of Church and State: Literature's Authority in Russia's Modern Tradition

has become Church [. . .] A Christian-and these days, every cultivated man is a Christian-does not know merely physical hunger, merely spiritual food. Word, for him, is flesh, and simple bread is merriment and mystery [. . .] (By the way, having recalled Baudelaire, I would like to honor his memory as a podvizhnik, in the most essential Christian sense of the word martyre). O. Mandelstam, Word and Culture (1921)

Physical and Metaphorical Hunger: The Extra-Biblical Temptations of Paradise Regained

Physical and Metaphorical Hunger: The Extra-Biblical Temptations of Paradise Regained

Justice: Views from the Social Sciences

Ronald L. Cohen Justice is a central moral standard in social life. It is invoked in judging individual persons and in judging basic structure of societies. It has been described as akin to a hunger or thirst (Pascal, Pensees, cited in Hirschman, 1982, p. 91), powerful than any physical hunger, and endlessly resilient (Pitkin, 1981, p. 349). The most prominent contemporary theory of justice proceeds from claim that justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is systems of (Rawls, 1971, p. 3). However, as following chapters demonstrate, justice has a complex and controversial history. If, as has been claimed, justice is a central category of human thought and a central aspect of human motivation, can it also be case that to invoke justice is no more than banging on table: an emotional expression which turns one's demand into an absolute postulate (Ross, 1959, p. 274)? If justice is first virtue of social institutions, can concept of social or economic justice at same time be entirely empty and meaningless so that any attempt to employ it is either thoughtless or fraudulent (Hayek, 1976, pp. xi-xii)? In a formal sense, justice concerns ensuring that each person receives what she or he is due.

The Religious Function of the Nurse

THERE IS SOMETHING PRIMITIVE about sickness and death. The experience of enduring pain, of being forced off one's feet, of having to wait out the slow turning of health-restoring forces, modern man holds in common with his primitive forebears. He is quite as mystified by illness, however more comfortable as a patient, as was ever anyone before him. Illness and death is a time of crisis; in times of crisis, as Dr. Walter H. Judd said recently, People ask fundamental questions, not, 'What is your golf score?' 'How do you like the new fashions in hats?' or, 'What bridge system do you play ?' In illness, people who have not thought of religion seriously for years ask, Why has this happened to me? What is the use anyway? Those are religious questions which have to do with the fundamental nature of things. A chaplain who served with the American troops at the front through eight months of hard fighting told me that he often listened to learned discussions, back of the lines, which attempted to disprove the validity of prayer and the existence of God. But at the front, when the pressure was on, as the men set themselves for the zero hour of going over the top or as they waited out a barrage, then every man was praying. In the sickroom have you not seen Bibles and prayer-books and beads upon bedside tables? Have you not observed patients turn their faces into their pillows and lie quietly? Have you not seen the moving of lips as patients are wheeled into the operating room? Have you not had patients cling to your hand and beg you, Pray for me? It is not fair to ask you what you did. My point simply is that in times of crisis people turn to fundamental things, to questions with which organized religion has always dealt. Religion in its inception was brought about by man's recognition of his helplessness; he had an altar before he had a home and he attempted to appease the spirits around him before he appeased the physical hunger within him. Religion in its beginning, as always, was man's effort to establish a satisfactory and satisfying relationship between himself and the universe. In the distant dawn of time much of his desire to worship was actuated by fear, but as he gained understanding and control over nature, as he learned to codperate with nature for his own welfare and security, he continued to worship, not because of fear, but because there was still that same old urge within him to establish a satisfying relationship between himself and That which he had come to call God. Illness is a throw-back. We see patients seeking reassurance at a time of crisis; they cling to the basic elements of their faith. With many it is a question of going back years, back to a time when their religious faith was consciously active and they were in touch with organized religion. In time of crisis, religious leaders also emphasize fundamental beliefs, cutting across differences in creed in an effort to bring reassurance and peace to those who seek it. A good example of this is the story of that great war chaplain, Father Duffy, who knelt beside a