HUMAN FEEDING-BEHAVIOR

The mechanisms determining human and animal food intake are compared in an attempt to identify the specific conditions of human nutritional regulation. Contrary to animals under ad lib regimen, the time and the amplitude of human meals escape the direct control exerted by metabolic signals of hunger and satiety and are essentially determined by sociocultural factors. Humans learn to be hungry at appropriate times and their internal signals of repletion/depletion have little impact on both postprandial satiety and meal amplitude. Furthermore, in humans, cognitive factors can easily override physiological signals and exert a predominant, sometimes anti-physiological, control on feeding behavior. The relative importance of learned responses, which also modulate ingestion in lower species, is enhanced in humans. Humans must learn to choose their foods and the quantities they will ingest by anticipation of the metabolic consequences of ingestion. Microbehavioral studies are reviewed and the impact of some sociocultural factors on human food intake is discussed. © 1979.