why we are more hungry in the winter. “We are driven by things implanted in our brain a long, long time ago,” says Ira Ockene, a cardiologist at the University of Massachusetts Medical School who has long been interested in how seasonal variations influence our health. Ockene’s own research has documented that caloric intake tends to increase as the weather turns colder. He also points to a study done at the University of Georgia back in 1991. Researchers closely tracked how much people ate from season to season and how quickly they ate it. Turns out, the study subjects consumed about 200 more calories a day beginning in the fall when the days grow darker. Ockene says we seem to be very sensitive to light. Less of it, he says, prompts us to seek food and eat it faster. “If you look out your window and have grassy, treed area, that sounds like chipmunk behavior, ” says Ockene. Not all scientists agree about our winter food-seeking habits. “I’m not disputing the possibility that people eat more in the winter,” says Marcia Pelchat of the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia. But she says doesn’t think it’s a vestigial “chipmunk” instinct. Pelchat says another explanation: Our winter eating habits are likely born of opportunity. There is more holiday feasting, better leftovers, more grazing in the kitchen, and fewer opportunities for playing and exercising outside. At every turn, it seems, our environment cues us to eat. read on at npr
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why we are more hungry in the winter.

“We are driven by things implanted in our brain a long, long time ago,” says Ira Ockene, a cardiologist at the University of Massachusetts Medical School who has long been interested in how seasonal variations influence our health.

Ockene’s own research has documented that caloric intake tends to increase as the weather turns colder. He also points to a study done at the University of Georgia back in 1991.

Researchers closely tracked how much people ate from season to season and how quickly they ate it. Turns out, the study subjects consumed about 200 more calories a day beginning in the fall when the days grow darker.

Ockene says we seem to be very sensitive to light. Less of it, he says, prompts us to seek food and eat it faster.

“If you look out your window and have grassy, treed area, that sounds like chipmunk behavior, ” says Ockene.

Not all scientists agree about our winter food-seeking habits.

“I’m not disputing the possibility that people eat more in the winter,” says Marcia Pelchat of the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia. But she says doesn’t think it’s a vestigial “chipmunk” instinct.

Pelchat says another explanation: Our winter eating habits are likely born of opportunity. There is more holiday feasting, better leftovers, more grazing in the kitchen, and fewer opportunities for playing and exercising outside.

At every turn, it seems, our environment cues us to eat.

read on at npr

10 Notes/ Hide

  1. tanvicious said: our interactions with food are historically-situated and culturally determined and not entirely chemically mediated.
  2. thesmokingspear reblogged this from commonunity
  3. commonunity posted this

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