Appetite

Appetite

Appetite is the desire to eat food, felt as hunger. Appetite exists in all higher life-forms, and serves to regulate adequate energy intake to maintain metabolic needs. It is regulated by a close interplay between the digestive tract, adipose tissue and the brain. Appetite has a relationship with every individual's behavior. Appetitive and consummatory behaviours are the only processes that involve energy intake, whereas all other behaviours affect the release of energy When stressed, appetite levels may increase and result in an increase of food intake. Decreased desire to eat is termed anorexia, while polyphagia (or "hyperphagia") is increased eating. Dysregulation of appetite contributes to anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, cachexia, overeating, and binge eating disorder.

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Famous quotes containing the word appetite:

    The appetite for power, even for universal power, is only insane when there is no possibility of indulging it; a man who sees the possibility opening before him and does not try to grasp it, even at the risk of destroying himself and his country, is either a saint or a mediocrity.
    Simone Weil (1909–1943)

    What a healthy out-of-door appetite it takes to relish the apple of life, the apple of the world, then!
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    Even in the centuries which appear to us to be the most monstrous and foolish, the immortal appetite for beauty has always found satisfaction.
    Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)