How your age affects your appetite
We need food every day, but our changing relationship with it through the years can have an impact on our health
We have a complicated relationship with food, influenced by cost, availability and even peer pressure. But something we all share is appetite – our desire to eat.
While hunger – our body’s way of making us desire food when it needs feeding – is a part of appetite, it is not the only factor. Research has highlighted that the abundance of food cues – smells, sounds, advertising – in our environment is one of the main causes of overconsumption.
Our appetite is not fixed, it changes across our lifespan as we age. A better understanding of these phases could help us to develop ways of tackling under-eating and overconsumption.
The first decade, 0-10
In early childhood, the body goes through rapid growth, and dietary behaviour built up in early life can extend into adulthood, leading a fat child to become a fat adult. Fussiness or fear of particular foods can contribute to meal time struggles for parents, but a strategy of repeated tasting and learning in a positive environment can help children learn about unfamiliar but important foods. Children should also experience some control, particularly in relation to portion size. Being forced to “clear the plate” by parents can lead youngsters to lose their ability to follow their own appetite and hunger cues, promoting overeating in later years. There are growing calls for governments to protect young children from targeted junk food advertising – not just on television but in apps, social media and video blogs – since food advertising increases food consumption, which can contribute to children becoming overweight.
The second decade, 10-20
In the teenage years, a growth in appetite and stature driven by hormones, signals the arrival of puberty. How a teenager approaches food during this critical period will shape their lifestyle choices in later years. This means the dietary decisions that adolescents make are intrinsically linked to the health of the future generations that they will later become parents to. Without guidance, teenagers may adopt eating behaviours and food preferences associated with unhealthy consequences. Young women in general are more likely to suffer from nutritional deficiencies than young men because of their reproductive biology.
The third decade, 20-30
As young adults, lifestyle changes such as going to college, getting married or living with a partner, and parenthood can promote weight gain. Once accumulated, body fat is difficult to lose. The body sends strong appetite signals to eat when we consume less than our energy needs, but the signals to prevent overeating are weaker, which can lead to a circle of over-consumption. There are physiological and psychological factors that make eating less difficult to maintain over time. An area of new research is to develop satiety, the sense of having eaten enough. This is helpful when trying to lose weight, since feeling hungry is one of the main barriers to eating less than your body says you need. Different foods send different signals to the brain. It’s easy to eat a tub of ice cream, for example, because fat doesn’t trigger signals in the brain for us to stop eating. On the other hand, foods high in protein, water or fibre content make us feel fuller for longer.
The fourth decade, 30-40
Adult working life brings other challenges beyond a rumbling stomach, but also the effects of stress, which has been shown to prompt changes in appetite and eating habits in 80% of the population, equally divided between those that gorge and those that lose their appetite. These different coping strategies are intriguing: the phenomena of “food addiction” is not well understood. Structuring the work environment to reduce problematic eating patterns such as snacking or vending machines can be a challenge.
The fifth decade, 40-50
The word diet comes from the Greek word diaita meaning “way of life, mode of living”, but we are creatures of habit, often unwilling to change our preferences even when we know it is good for us. We want to eat what we want without changing our lifestyle, and still have a healthy body and mind.
There is much evidence to show that diet is a major contributing factor to ill-health. It is between the ages of 40-50 that adults should change their behaviour as their health dictates, but symptoms of illness are often invisible – for example high blood pressure or cholesterol – and so many fail to act.
The sixth decade, 50-60
After the age of 50, we begin to suffer a gradual loss of muscle mass, at between 0.5- 1% per year. This is called sarcopenia, and lessened physical activity, consuming too little protein, and menopause in women will accelerate the decline in muscle mass. A healthy, varied diet and physical activity are important to reduce the effects of ageing, and an ageing population’s need for palatable, cost- effective, higher- protein foods is not being met.
The seventh decade, 60-70, and beyond
A major challenge today in the face of increasing life expectancy is to maintain quality of life, or else we will become a society of very old and infirm or disabled people. Adequate nutrition is important, as old age brings poor appetite and lack of hunger, which leads to unintentional weight loss and greater frailty. Food is a social experience, but the loss of a partner or family and eating alone affect the sense of pleasure taken from eating. Other affects of old age, such as swallowing problems, dental issues, reduced taste and smell also interfere with the desire to eat and our rewards from doing so.