For those who get agile when they lose lunch, it may be the perfect excuse: researchers have confirmed that lack of food makes otherwise bearable people “like”.
In one of the first studies that explored how hunger affects emotions as people conduct their daily lives, psychologists found that the more people felt, the more angry or hungry they became.
The study came after Professor Viren Swami, a social psychologist at Anglia Ruskin University, was told, on more than one occasion, that he was hungry and had to do something about it. The challenge made him wonder if being hungry was a real phenomenon.
Working with researchers from Austria and Malaysia, Swami recruited 64 adults between the ages of 18 and 60 to record their emotions and feelings of hunger five times a day for three weeks. While the relationship between hunger and emotions has been studied in labs, volunteers monitored their feelings while doing their daily routines.
Writing in the journal Plos One, psychologists describe how hunger was associated with stronger feelings of anger and irritability and lower levels of pleasure. “It turns out that being hungry is a real thing,” Swami said.
The study does not propose any radical solution, but Swami believes that being able to recognize and label emotion can be helpful. “Many times, we may be aware of what we are feeling but we don’t understand the cause. If we can label it, we can do something better,” he said.
Researchers have a number of hypotheses that aim to explain why hunger can take over our emotions. One is based on studies that suggest that a low blood sugar level increases impulsivity, anger, and aggression. But it is unclear whether this loss of self-control can result from small drops of blood glucose. Another proposes that when people are hungry, they are more likely to see the world with irritable eyes.
Regardless of the mechanism, Swami believes the study raises a serious point: children who go hungry at school are less likely to learn effectively and are more likely to have behavior problems, so make sure that students receive adequate nutrition should be a priority. “It’s very important to be able to identify emotions like being hungry so we can mitigate the negative effects,” he said.
For adults who find their social skills plummeting after skipping lunch, the advice is simple: “Don’t go hungry,” Swami said. “Although for many people it’s easier said than done.”