Hunger is a diagnosable condition resulting from a prolonged lack of essential nutrients. Symptoms include physical changes, mental and behavioral consequences, reduced immune response, and muscle and physical wasting. Treatment involves introducing small, frequent, well-balanced meals gradually and monitoring improvement.
Recognizing the symptoms of hunger is usually a matter of learning to identify the many ways the condition can affect a person or animal. For many, the clearest sign of hunger is an emaciated, bone-thin body; hungry children also often have swollen and distended abdomens. However, these physical symptoms usually only show up when hunger has been going on for a long time. In most cases, the body does everything it can to preserve itself and only wears out as a last resort. To see hunger before it gets really bad, you’ll also need to pay attention to mental and behavioral changes, including increased irritability and difficulty concentrating for extended periods. A range of physiological symptoms are also common, including circulatory problems that can cause a person to feel constantly cold. Starvation also tends to weaken the immune response and sick people are likely to get sick more easily and stay sick longer than they would if they were given adequate nutrition.
The basics of hunger
From a medical point of view, hunger is a diagnosable condition that results from a prolonged lack of essential nutrients. It usually takes a long time to develop and is much greater than temporary starvation. People usually don’t actually starve to death unless they’ve gone for weeks or more without access to adequate nutrition. “Adequate” is key here, since many clinically hungry people and animals are actually eating — they’re just not eating the foods they need to adequately fuel their bodies. A child who eats only grains may starve even if he eats at regular intervals; the same goes for an adult who consumes just a little rice or green leafy vegetables each day. Having enough food to survive and having enough to be truly healthy and grow properly are different things in this context.
Mental and behavioral consequences
Some of the first symptoms you may notice affect your behavior and mental acuity. The most notable tend to be irritability, lethargy, and difficulty paying attention. Starving people are often preoccupied with the thought of food and have very little ability to stay focused on a task; they usually get tired and listless very easily. The combination of distractibility and lack of energy can produce irritability, particularly in children.
Physiological symptoms
Once the hunger really starts to set in, the physiological symptoms typically appear. Timing can vary depending on individual strength, age, and size, but is usually anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. The starvation victim’s cardiovascular system will likely be impaired by the lack of vitamins and minerals, and blood pressure will drop as a result. The decrease in blood pressure will reduce circulation and make the person feel cold in situations where others are not cold; he or she will also usually have cold hands and feet. Hungry people may also complain of dizziness, appear lightheaded when standing, or pass out at seemingly random intervals. The reduced circulation will eventually cause your hands, feet and ankles to swell.
Muscle wasting and physical wasting
One of the most obvious things that you will usually notice are the changes in the body of the starving victim. Prolonged malnutrition causes the victim to become extremely thin; bones typically protrude through the skin, muscles wear out, and the belly may distend. Other symptoms of hunger are dry, flaky skin, slow-growing nails that break or break easily, and limp, thin hair. Also, the gums bleed easily and the teeth often deteriorate badly.
Reduced immune response
There are also a number of less obvious symptoms of hunger to look out for. Wound healing and immune responses in a starving body are often compromised, for example, as these functions are generally judged by the brain as a low physiological priority, at least when basic survival is at stake. As a result, you may notice slow wound healing, persistent sores or rashes, and long-lasting infections.
The rapid weight loss that accompanies starvation can produce gallstones and problems associated with the condition, including pain in the right shoulder, back, right upper belly, and near the breastbone. Malnourished people with gallstones frequently touch, press, or rub these areas. Hunger and poor diet can also cause irregular or no menstrual cycles in women.
Treatment options
Curing hunger is not always as easy as it seems. People who have been without food for a long time are often unable to handle large amounts of nutrition at once, and in many cases large meals can actually make matters worse. In most cases, small, frequent, well-balanced meals need to be introduced gradually to allow the stomach and body to start processing food again. Eventually, larger meals and snacks that are high in calories and protein can be routinely fed.
Vitamin and mineral supplementation can begin once a person is able to tolerate normal food again. It is often helpful to assess the extent of malnutrition and monitor improvement by making a baseline weight record; if you have the ability, doing blood tests to check for deficiencies and using computed tomography to look at organ damage can be very helpful when it comes to both assessing the damage and making a plan for moving forward.
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