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Efforts to measure the incidence of hunger in America have been ongoing since the late 1960s, but researchers have been unable to arrive at a consensus on the magnitude of the problem. In part the issue has been establishing a definition of hunger that is meaningful in the American context of abundance. This has meant moving from an initial preoccupation with malnutrition to an understanding of hunger in terms of perceived food insufficiency and food insecurity, where the latter connotes the inability to rely on conventional means of food acquisition as well as the need to resort to various coping strategies. Surveys that measure food insufficiency and insecurity suggest that roughly 10 million Americans can be classified as hungry.

Analysis of the influence of intake of water on food intake capacity suggested that drinking additional quantities of water effects changes in the nature of food habits during a particular meal. A 100 mm visual analogue reference frame facilitates the estimation of feelings of hunger and satiety. The time duration of the occurrence of these effects is also measured. Intake of two glasses of water influences subjective feelings of hunger and satiety during a meal, which are subject to alterations regardless of the food energy utilized. No inference was forthcoming during this study.

The lack of an operational definition for hunger has been frequently cited as a barrier to progress in addressing the problem. The purposes of this research were to develop an understanding of hunger from the perspective of women who had experienced it and to construct and evaluate indicators to measure hunger directly in similar populations. In-depth interviews were conducted with 32 women of childbearing age from rural and urban areas of Upstate New York. Qualitative analysis of the responses yielded a conceptualization of hunger that included two levels: the individual and household. Hunger at each of these levels had quantitative, qualitative, psychological and social components. These women also viewed hunger as a managed process. Based on this conceptualization of hunger, survey items were developed and evaluated, using data from a questionnaire administered to 189 women from the same geographical area. Three scales, one each for household, women's, and children's hunger, emerged and were found to be valid and reliable indicators for measuring hunger directly in this population. INTRODUCTION Throughout the latter half of the 1980s, policymakers and researchers were in agreement that the lack of an operational definition for hunger was a major barrier to progress in monitoring and alleviating the phenomenon. Reflecting on the past, Cohen[1] has stated, 'One of the greatest stumbling blocks in the development of hunger policy has been the lack of a universally agreed upon definition of hunger.' Researchers at the University of California in Berkeley recognized the problem and, in February 1987, convened a workshop with the central goal of defining and measuring hunger. Participants in the workshop concluded that 'the basic problem is that hunger is a subjective perception and therefore not a condition that is directly measurable'[2]. Therefore, they suggested that researchers need to find proxy or correlative measures for hunger. In contrast to the conclusion of the Berkeley conference, this research was undertaken with the conviction that it was possible to measure hunger directly. The approach used is described in this paper. The purposes of this research were to develop an understanding of hunger based on the perspective of those who had experienced it (Study 1) and, from this understanding, to construct and evaluate indicators to measure hunger directly in similar populations (Study 2). STUDY 1 METHODS Paradigm. Given the lack of a well-developed understanding of the experience of hunger, a naturalistic paradigm seemed well-suited to the first purpose for this research. In naturalistic inquiry, the researcher does not begin with a specific theory or hypothesis; rather, the investigator seeks to develop an elaborated conceptualization of a phenomenon derived from a thorough understanding of its experiential base[3, 4]. Sample. From March through November of 1987, thirty-two women from Upstate New York who said they had gone or had nearly gone hungry were interviewed about their experiences. The research focused on hunger in women of child-bearing age and their children because of their high rates of poverty relative to the general population, a correlate of hunger. Women were identified through a variety of agencies that assist low income people or people in need of food, such as food pantries, soup kitchens, the Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), Head Start, commodity food distribution programs, and Cornell Cooperative Extension. Because the objective of naturalistic inquiry is to understand a phenomenon, rather than to test the generalizability of a hypothesis, purposive sampling was used[4]. The main sampling criterion was maximum diversity. The characteristics of the women included in the sample are shown in Table 1.

Leptin Levels and Successful Dieting If you're dieting and your leptin levels go down, you may get a lot hungrier. So say ARS researchers in Davis, California, who are studying [...]

In recent years, research has focused on why fat is so readily overconsumed. Although the palatability of many high fat foods can encourage overconsumption, another possibility is that fat is not very satiating. A number of studies have compared the effects of fat and carbohydrate on both satiation (the amount eaten in a meal) and satiety (the effect on subsequent intake), but have found little difference between these macronutrients when the palatability and energy density were similar. On the other hand, the energy density of foods has been demonstrated to have a robust and significant effect on both satiety and satiation, independently of palatability and macronutrient content. It is likely that the high energy density of many high fat foods facilitates the overconsumption of fat. An understanding of the role that the energy density of foods plays in the regulation of food intake should lead to better dietary management of hunger and satiety in conditions associated with both over- and underconsumption of energy, such as obesity and anorexia. J. Nutr. 130: 268S-271S, 2000. KEY WORDS: * energy density * fat intake * human food intake * hunger * satiety