What are Food Cravings and Why do We Have Them?
Hi Friends!
I want to talk about something I’m sure we’ve all encountered in our weight loss journey. Whether it’s salty, savory, sweet, or all three, we have all had food cravings that threaten to pull us in the opposite direction of our healthy eating goals.
There is no judgment from me, whatever your craving is. I used to think Cheez-its and ice cream was an acceptable breakfast.
It can seem impossible to ignore these food cravings, but once you figure out what they mean, where they come from, and why they pop up when they do, it will help you navigate your food choices more easily.
Because I think it’s important to know the story behind why we do what we do, there are a few things we need to know about food cravings before we can apply real-world ways to manage them.
In this post, I will first talk about what food cravings are, and the process from ‘food cue’ to consumption when we get one.
Then, we’ll look at why our bodies have food cravings in the first place. Is it physiological, psychological, or a leftover survival trait from our cavewomen ancestors? Maybe it’s all three!
Once you know why you have cravings, check out my guide on how to outsmart these food cravings when they do come up.
What are Food Cravings?
1. Food cravings vs. Hunger:
There is a difference between food cravings and hunger, and once you are able to figure out which is which, you will be empowered to make the best food choices for the moment.
Food Cravings:
Food cravings are “frequent, intense, and irresistible desires to consume a particular type of food.” (1) Think about it as something you want so badly, there is nothing you can do to stop thinking about it.
The longing for that specific food can consume your thoughts and compel you to find and eat it, even if that means stopping what you’re doing and heading straight to the fridge, or getting in your car and driving to the store.
If you have been pregnant, or get cravings on your period, that is probably the best way to think about it. When I was pregnant with my first son, nothing would stop me from getting what I wanted, when I wanted it lol.
Hunger:
Hunger is different from cravings. When you feel hungry, you want food, but it is often less intense of a feeling toward a specific food. Within your specific tastes, really anything would satisfy this feeling.
When you’re truly hungry, it becomes more about eating whatever is available that will fuel you, even temporarily.
2. Negative Effects of Food Cravings:
Does it ever seem like the more you indulge your cravings, the more you continue to have those cravings? It may not surprise you that food cravings can have a significant impact on a physical, emotional, and neurocognitive (brain) level.
For example, your cravings can hijack your brain’s reward systems, giving you so much pleasure and satisfaction when you act on them. This feeling can lead to overeating and, over time, it could contribute to excess weight and obesity. (1,2)
Food cravings are powerful and can differ in intensity among individuals. Research suggests that some people experience them more strongly than others. People who naturally tend to have more intense cravings also tend to:
Overeat
Have a higher body-mass index
Try to lose weight unsuccessfully
Be more prone to eating disorders. (3)
This reaction is strongly genetic. (3) Genes can affect food cravings, appetite, satiety (how full or satisfied you feel after eating), metabolism, body-fat distribution, and how we cope with stress. (4)
What triggers our food cravings in the first place is our natural physiology, which could then be reinforced by continuing to indulge the craving.
Those who experience excess weight or obesity are often at an even bigger disadvantage when it comes to food cravings. Studies show that people with a higher body-mass index tend to experience stronger cravings for foods that are more energy-dense (foods that are high in calories and low in nutrients). (1)
3. The Life Cycle of Food Cravings:
Where food cravings begin:
According to one commonly used research tool, the Food Craving Inventory (FCI), there are five types of foods that we typically crave:
Sweet
High-fat
Starchy
Fast food
Fruits and vegetables. (2)
Cravings for these foods can feel intense and powerful. That’s because, on a biological level, they’re associated with physical, emotional, and even neurocognitive (brain) responses.
Have you ever noticed that seeing a food advertisement or smelling something cooking can make you want that particular food right then and there? These sights and smells are called food cues and they are what kickstarts food cravings.
Being exposed to food cues ramps up our cravings and desire to eat on physical, emotional, and neurocognitive levels.
On a physical level, food cues increase our production of saliva and insulin. Our bodies are literally preparing to digest the food it expects us to be eating soon.
On an emotional level, we associate the memory of seeing or smelling a food with times we felt comfort or joy, and why wouldn’t we want to feel that way again?
On a neurocognitive level, food cravings activate certain “reward areas” of our brains. (5) These are shown in brain imaging studies as areas that light up when we think about certain foods.
Food cues turn into cravings in two steps:
Step 1: You see, smell, or think about a certain food and want to eat it even if you’re not hungry. This is when the brain has a high desire for and preoccupation with a specific food or type of food. You think about the food and it’s so hard to stop thinking about it.
Step 2: Your craving leads you to get up and start seeking out that food. (6)
This means that our brains play a HUGE role in what triggers our cravings, and what leads to us acting on those food cravings.
How to spot food cues:
Do you feel like you experience food cravings multiple times throughout the day? Why do our bodies feel this way so often?
It’s really pretty simple- food cues are everywhere in the environment around us!
You could be watching TV, listening to a podcast, reading a book, driving by a billboard, or even an actual fast food location.
Even when you think you are getting away from food cues, you might be going for a Sunday afternoon walk, and smell your neighbor’s grill.
We’re inundated with ads, logos, banners, and other sights, smells, and memories. Convenience store windows have posters of crave-able snacks. Restaurants, bakeries, and cafes let off aromas of freshly baked and cooked goods.
And that’s not even mentioning the aptly located candy and junk food right at the checkout counter.
If you live in an environment with an abundance of food, research shows that you are likely to make about 200 food-related decisions every day! That’s a lot of thinking about food and deciding what, where, when, and how to eat. (7)
As you can see, your food environment gives you a never-ending supply of food cues that no doubt trigger your natural cravings.
Acting on the food cravings:
Once you’ve registered a food cue that has kickstarted a craving, why does it feel like it’s impossible to resist?
In reality, our environment is designed to help us satisfy those food cravings as quickly as possible.
When you feel like life cannot go on until you have a bite of a Reese’s, it is probably not more than a 5-10 minute drive away. For some, it might even be a 1-2 minute walk if you’re near a vending machine or corner store.
Many of us are surrounded by a huge selection of inexpensive and convenient foods and drinks available 24 hours per day, 7 days per week.
When we buy them—if we don’t finish them right away—these craved foods make it home and are available to quickly grab from our purses, pantries, and fridges just in time for the next craving.
Let’s take it one step further. Not only do our brains naturally have cravings, but most processed food is also specifically designed to satisfy our cravings while making us want more almost immediately. (8)
These foods have been tested and manufactured to have the optimal flavor, color, texture, mouthfeel, etc. The idea is to really get into the brain’s reward system and convince us that we need to buy more.
It’s kind of a no brainer that convenient access to a variety of crave-able foods does not help us manage our cravings.
Why do we have food cravings?
1. Biological
Even though the convenient access to food is a relatively new, human-designed environment, our cravings did not develop because of it.
Food cravings are a deeply biological trait that we have developed because of survival.
Throughout the history of humankind, our survival depended upon our motivation to find food and sustenance to satisfy our hunger. Our cravings are what told us the type of food we needed to eat to ensure the nutrients we took in were balanced and provided for a healthy diet.
Food cravings point to specific types of foods: sweet, high-fat, starchy, or fast foods. These are foods that can give us a lot of energy right away (sweet, starchy) and foods that can sustain us for a longer time (high-fat).
When humans lived in much harsher conditions, there was a higher need to have quick sources of energy in order to fight or flee to survive immediate threats. These types of food create reserves in our bodies in case of droughts or famines.
This is one of the reasons why we don’t really crave low-sugar, low-starch, low-fat foods (like kale) that much.
Of course, vegetables are full of fiber and nutrients and I highly recommend getting these into your diet every day. It’s just that our natural tendency isn’t to go out of our way to seek those out. For the most part, we don’t crave them.
The Deficiency Hypothesis:
This is the modern-day explanation as to why we still have food cravings. Because our brains still have the survival trigger left over, it tells us when we are low in a specific nutrient and need to replenish it. So, it is the simple idea that we crave certain foods that will give us more of the nutrients we need.
You might be experiencing a deficiency craving if the craving naturally goes away when you get enough of the nutrient. This could be like craving steak (fat or iron) but not needing to finish your entire plate.
According to recent research, our modern-day food cravings influenced by the deficiency hypothesis are more centered around high-fat or high-carb foods. For example, people still craved these types of foods even when they reduced their intake over time through diet changes.
Altogether, this means that there is still some element of the deficiency hypothesis that plays a role in our food cravings. (1,2) It’s just that the role that nutrient deficiencies play is probably smaller than the role that our emotions and behaviors play.
2. Emotional
Another reason we might have food cravings is due to stress relief. Studies show that physical or emotional distress can increase the intake of highly craved foods. Stress hormones, hunger hormones, and insulin may all play a role. (9)
Do you find yourself craving comfort food more often when you have a busy week full of multiple deadlines or responsibilities? Then, when the craved food is consumed, you might feel a little less stressed? (Unless you feel guilty you ate that food in the first place, but there is no reason to worry because your craving was natural, and you can get right back on track with your diet goals!)
The Conditioning Hypothesis:
A big part of the emotional reason why we have food cravings is that we are psychologically and behaviorally conditioned to want certain foods when we feel certain emotions or are in a certain environment.
The idea behind this hypothesis is that it is our feelings and habits that drive us to crave a certain food. (2) For example, if you’re used to snacking when watching TV or a movie, you may crave popcorn during those times simply because you’re in front of a screen, not because you’re low in sodium.
Another example is comfort foods that we may crave when we’re feeling out of sorts and want to relive a previous time in our lives where we felt comforted and happy. Do you ever crave your grandma’s famous Thanksgiving sides when you are going through a rough time?
You can tell you are experiencing conditioning type food cravings if they subside when you stop indulging them. So, if you can refrain from eating that piece of cake when you feel like you need comfort after a bad day, you might be able to stop craving it altogether. (2,3)
Recent studies showed that the conditioning hypothesis plays a significant role in modern-day food cravings. People who resisted their cravings for 12+ weeks found that those specific cravings got (a bit) smaller. (1,2)
This same reduction in cravings was also found in people who followed a low-sodium diet for several months. They ended up preferring less salt in their food. (10)
It now appears that food cravings seem to help feed our emotional needs (at least a little bit) more than our physical needs.
The bottom line is that food cravings are “a complex bio-psycho-social phenomenon that cannot be fully explained using a simple psychological model alone.” (1) Meaning, your emotional and physical wellbeing are mutually important when looking at why you crave the foods you do. And, there are ways to manage those cravings.
_______________________________
So, now you know food cravings are a completely normal part of being human. They are part of your natural biology and that makes them very difficult to change. It’s also possible that you experience stronger cravings due to certain genetic factors.
But, we all live in a food environment that promotes multiple food cues every day and gives us easy access to the foods we crave. Our emotional and biological reasons for craving food work together to push us toward certain foods we may or may not need more of.
If you need help developing a plan to work with your cravings without letting them rule you, I would love to help! Understanding why we crave what we do can be a deeply personal experience, but one of the keys to unlocking the healthiest versions of ourselves (mentally and physically).
If you believe you may have any nutrient deficiencies or any health conditions, speak with your healthcare professional for a proper diagnosis and treatment strategy.
I believe in all of you! We might be predisposed to crave foods, but that doesn’t mean they have to be the reason we can’t have the success we want in life!
What is your most craved food? Do you have a strategy for avoiding it, or do you indulge when you feel it?
SARAH FAILLA
References
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