Abstract
The notion of regulation is key to the understanding of body weight control. The independent life of animals requires the active regulation of many critical parameters of the internal status of the organism, i.e., their maintenance within a narrow range of defended values. Food intake is not one of such parameters. Food intake is one of many effector mechanisms that contribute to the regulation of several internal parameters, such as glycemia and adipose stores. The science of the last century has clarified the fine machinery of regulatory processes. Beyond the early notion of feedback loops triggering regulatory responses to existing need states, it is now recognized that efficient regulation rests on learned anticipatory responses, both physiological and behavioral, that are highly plastic and continuously shaped by the experience of environmental conditions. In humans, a wide range of factors (genetic, psychological, sociocultural, environmental, etc.) exert a significant influence on eating patterns. In spite of the massive influence of environmental and social factors, regulatory adjustments can be detected in the food intake of humans, including persons with obesity. Impressive developments in knowledge have paralleled an unprecedented worldwide increase in the frequency of obesity. In this field, knowledge does not equate power. Even in the present obesogenic world, however, food intake matches energy needs perfectly in many individuals with healthy weight. Understanding why regulation mechanisms allow body adiposity to drift upward in so many others remains a crucial challenge.
References
Begum, S., Hinton, E. C., Toumpakari, Z., Frayling, T. M., Howe, L., Johnson, L., & Lawrence, N. (2023). Mediation and moderation of genetic risk of obesity through eating behaviours in two UK cohorts. International Journal of Epidemiology, dyad092. https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyad092
Bellisle, F. (2014). Meals and snacking, diet quality and energy balance. Physiology & Behavior, 134, 38–43.
Bernard, C. (1879). Leçons sur les phénomènes de la vie. Baillère.
Berridge, K. C., Ho, C. Y., Richard, J. M., & DiFeliciantonio, A. G. (2010). The tempted brain eats: Pleasure and desire circuits in obesity and eating disorders. Brain Research, 1350, 43–64.
Berthoud, H. R. (2011). Metabolic and hedonic drives in the neural control of appetite: Who is the boss? Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 21, 888–896.
Berthoud, H. R., Munzberg, H., & Morrison, C. D. (2017). Blaming the brain for obesity: Integration of hedonic and homeostatic mechanisms. Gastroenterology, 152, 1728–1738.
Blundell, J. E., de Graaf, C., Hulshof, T., Jebb, S., Livingstone, B., Lluch, A., et al. (2010). Appetite control: Methodological aspects of the evaluation of foods. Obesity Reviews, 11, 251–270.
Booth, D. A. (1977). Satiety and appetite are conditioned reactions. Psychosomatic Medicine, 39, 76–81.
Brobeck, J. R. (1948). Food intake as a mechanism of temperature regulation. Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, 20, 545–552.
Caballero, B. (2019). Humans against obesity: Who will win? Advances in Nutrition, 10, S4–S9. https://doi.org/10.1093/advances/nmy055
Cannon, W. B. (1932). The wisdom of the body (pp. 177–201). W. W. Norton.
Champagne, C. M., Han, H., Bajpeyi, S., Rood, J., Johnson, W. D., Lammi-Keefe, C. J., et al. (2013). Day-to-day variation in food intake and energy expenditure in healthy women: The dietitian II study. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 113, 1532–1538.
Chapelot, D., Marmonier, C., Aubert, R., et al. (2004). A role for glucose and insulin preprandial profiles to differentiate meals and snacks. Physiology & Behavior, 80, 721–731.
Cornil, Y., & Chandon, P. (2015). Pleasure as an ally of healthy eating? Contrasting visceral and Epicurean eating pleasure and their association with portion size preferences and wellbeing. Appetite, 104, 52–59. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2015.08.045
De Castro, J. M. (1988). A microregulatory analysis of spontaneous fluid intake by humans: Evidence that the amount of liquid ingested and its timing is mainly governed by feeding. Physiology & Behavior, 43, 705–714.
De Castro, J. M. (1994). Methodology, correlational analysis, and interpretation of diet diary records of the food and fluid intakes of free-living humans. Appetite, 23, 179–192.
De Castro, J. M. (1998). Prior day’s intake has macronutrient-specific delayed negative feedback effects on the spontaneous food intake of free-living humans. Journal of Nutrition, 128, 61–67.
De Castro, J. M. (2010). The control of food intake of free-living humans: Putting the pieces back together. Plysiology & Behavior, 100, 446–453.
De Castro, J. M., & Brewer, E. M. (1992). The amount eaten by humans is a power function of the number of people present. Physiology & Behavior, 51, 121–125.
De Castro, J. M., & Elmore, D. K. (1988). Subjective hunger relationship with meal patterns in the spontaneous feeding behavior of humans: Evidence for a causal connection. Physiology & Behavior, 43, 159–165.
De Castro, J. M., & Plunkett, S. (2002). A general model of intake regulation. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 26, 581–595.
Edholm, O. G., Fletcher, J. G., Widdowson, E. M., & McCance, R. A. (1955). The energy expenditure and food intake of individual men. British Journal of Nutrition, 9, 286–300.
Hall, K. D., Sacks, G., Chandramohan, D., Chow, C. C., Wang, Y. C., Gortmaker, S. L., et al. (2011). Quantification of the effect of energy imbalance on bodyweight. Lancet, 378, 826–837.
Hall, K. D., Heymsfield, S. B., Kemnitz, J. W., Klein, S., Schoeller, D. A., & Speakman, J. R. (2012). Energy balance and its components: Implications for body weight regulation. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 95, 989–994.
Herman, P. (2015). The social facilitation of eating. A review. Appetite, 86, 61–73.
Higgs, S., & Spetter, M. S. (2018). Cognitive control of eating: The role of memory in appetite and weight gain. Current Obesity Reports, 7, 50–59.
Hoebel, B. G., & Teitelbaum, P. (1966). Hypothalamic control of feeding and self-stimulation. Science, 149, 452–453.
Iwatsuki, K., Ichikawa, R., Uematsu, A., Kitamura, A., Uneyama, H., & Torii, K. (2011). Detecting sweet and umami tastes in the gastrointestinal tract. Acta Physiologica, 204, 169–177. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-1716.2011.02353.x
Kahneman, D., Schkade, D. A., Fischler, C., Krueger, A. B., & Krilla, A. (2010). The structure of well-being in two cities: Life satisfaction and experienced happiness in Columbus, Ohio; and Rennes, France. In E. Diener, J. F. Helliwell, & D. Kahneman (Eds.), International differences in well-being (pp. 16–33). Oxford University Press.
Kennedy, G. C. (1953). The role of depot fat in the hypothalamic control of food intake in the rat. Proceedings of the Royal Society, B137, 578–592.
Langhans, W. (1996). Metabolic and glucostatic control of feeding. Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, 55, 497–515.
Le Magnen, J. (1971). Advances I studies of the physiological control and regulation of food intake. In E. Stellar & J. M. Sprague (Eds.), Progress in physiological psychology (Vol. 4, pp. 204–261). Academic Press.
Le Magnen, J. (1992). Neurobiology of feeding and nutrition. Academic.
Mayer, J. (1953). Glucostatic mechanisms of regulation of food intake. New England Journal of Medicine, 249, 13–16.
McKiernan, F., Hollis, J. H., & Mattes, R. D. (2008a). Short-term dietary compensation in free-living adults. Physiology & Behavior, 18, 975–983.
McKiernan, F., Houchins, J. A., & Mattes, R. D. (2008b). Relationships between human thirst, hunger, drinking, and feeding. Physiology & Behavior, 94, 700–708.
McKiernan, F., Hollis, J. H., McCabe, G., & Mattes, R. D. (2009). Thirst-drinking, hunger-eating; tight coupling? Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 109, 486–490.
Pavela, G., Allison, D. B., & Cardel, M. I. (2019). A sweeping highlight of the literature examining social status, eating behavior, and obesity. Appetite, 132, 205–207.
Pavlov, I. (1927). Conditioned reflexes. An investigation of the physiological activity of the cerebral cortex. Oxford University Press.
Pedersen, M. M., Ekstrøm, C. T., & Sørensen, T. I. A. (2023). Emergence of the obesity epidemic preceding the presumed obesogenic transformation of the society. Science Advances, 9. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adg6237
Pepino, M. Y., & Mennella, J. A. (2012). Habituation to the pleasure elicited by sweetness in lean and obese women. Appetite, 58, 800–805.
Powley, T. L. (1977). The ventromedial hypothalamic syndrome, satiety, and a cephalic phase hypothesis. Psychology Review, 84, 89–126.
Powley, T. L., & Keesey, R. E. (1970). Relationship of body weight to the lateral hypothalamic feeding syndrome. Journal of Comparative Physiological Psychology, 70, 25–36.
Ramsay, D. S., & Woods, S. C. (2016). Physiological regulation: How it really works. Cell Metabolism, 24, 361–364.
Rodgers, A., Woodward, A., Swinburn, B., & Dietz, W. H. (2018). Prevalence trends tell US what did not precipitate the US obesity epidemic. The Lancet, 3, e162–e163.
Rogers, P. J., & Brunstrom, J. M. (2016). Appetite and energy balancing. Physiology & Behavior, 164, 465–471.
Rolls, B. J., & Hetherington, M. (1989). The role of variety in eating and body weight. In R. Shepherd (Ed.), Psychobiology of human eating and nutritional behavior (pp. 58–84). Wiley.
Sclafani, A. (2018). From appetite set point to appetition: 50 years of ingestive behavior research. Physiology & Behavior, 192, 210–217.
Somjen, G. G. (1992). The missing error signal: Regulation beyond negative feedback. News in Physiological Science, 7, 184–185.
Sørensen, T. I. A. (2009). Challenges in the study of causation of obesity. Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, 68, 43–54. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0029665108008847
Speakman, J. R. (2007). A nonadaptative scenario explaining the genetic predisposition to obesity: The ‘predation release’ hypothesis. Cell Metabolism, 6, 5–12.
Speakman, J. R., Levitsky, D. A., Allison, D. B., et al. (2011). Set points, settling points and some alternative models: Theoretical options to understand how genes and environments combine to regulate body adiposity. Disease Models & Mechanisms, 4, 733–745.
Stubbs, R., Hughes, D., Johnstone, A., Rowley, E., Reid, C., Elia, M., et al. (2000). The use of visual analogue scales to assess motivation to eat in human subjects: A review of their reliability and validity with an evaluation of new hand-held computerized systems for temporal tracking of appetite ratings. British Journal of Nutrition, 84, 405–415.
Teff, K. L. (2011). How neural mediation of anticipatory and compensatory insulin release helps us tolerate food. Physiology & Behavior, 103, 44–50.
Thaler, J. P., Guyenet, S. J., Dorfman, M. D., & Wisse, B. E. (2013). Hypothalamic inflammation: Marker or mechanism of obesity pathogenesis? Diabetes, 62, 2629–2634.
Westerterp, K., & Soares, M. J. (2023). Challenges in measuring energy balance and body composition. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 77, 509–510. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41430-023-01286-8
Woods, S. C. (2009). The control of food intake: Behavioral versus molecular perspectives. Cell Metabolism, 9, 489–498.
Woods, S. C. (2013). Metabolic signals and food intake. Forty years of progress. Appetite, 71, 440–444.
Woods, S. C., May-Zhang, A. A., & Begg, D. P. (2018). How and why do gastrointestinal peptides influence food intake? Physiology & Behavior, 193, 218–222.
Zhang, Y., Proenca, R., Maffei, M., Barone, M., Leopold, I., & Friedman, J. M. (1994). Positional cloning of the mouse obese gene and its human homologue. Nature, 372, 425–432.
Zheng, H., Lenard, N. R., Shin, A. C., & Berthoud, H. R. (2009). Appetite control and energy balance regulation in the modern world: Reward-driven brain overrides repletion signals. International Journal of Obesity, 33, S8–S13.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2024 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Bellisle, F. (2024). Food Intake and Physiological Regulation: The Means and the End. In: Meiselman, H.L. (eds) Handbook of Eating and Drinking. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75388-1_128-2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75388-1_128-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-75388-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-75388-1
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences
Publish with us
Chapter history
-
Latest
Food Intake and Physiological Regulation: The Means and the End- Published:
- 20 March 2024
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75388-1_128-2
-
Original
Food Intake and Physiological Regulation: The Means and the End- Published:
- 14 March 2019
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75388-1_128-1