Eating

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

1 Eating practices
2 Disorders
3 Wolfing
4 See also

For "eat" or "EAT" as an abbreviation or acronym, see EAT.

In general terms, eating (formally, ingestion) is the process of consuming nutrition, i.e. food, for the purpose of providing for the nutritional needs of an animal, particularly his energy requirements. All animals must eat other organisms in order to survive: carnivores eat other animals, herbivores eat plants, and omnivores consume a mixture of both.

While the process of eating varies from species to species, in humans eating is performed by placing food in the mouth and then swallowing it, with chewing often occurring between these actions. Eaten food is then digested.

Manners are an important aspect of social eating in almost all human societies.

[edit] Eating practices

The usual accessories for everyday eating in Western cultures: table, chair and tableware.

Eating is often made into a social occasion.

Many homes have a separate kitchenroom or outside (in the tropics) kitchen area devoted to preparation of meals and food, and many also have a dining room or another designated area for eating. Dishware, silverware, drinkware for eating and cookware and other implements for cooking come in an almost infinite array of forms and sizes. Most societies also have restaurants and food vendors, so that people may eat when away from home, lack the time to prepare food, or wish to use eating as a social occasion. Occasionally, such as at potlucks and food festivals, eating is in fact the primary purpose of the social gathering.;

Most individuals have fairly regular daily patterns of eating, and commonly most eating occurs during two to three meals per day, with snacks consisting of smaller amounts of food being consumed in between. The issue of healthy eating has long been an important concern to individuals and cultures. Among other practices, fasting, dieting, and vegetarianism are all techniques employed by individuals and encouraged by societies to increase longevity and health. Some religions promote vegetarianism considering it wrong to consume animals. Leading nutritionists believe that instead of indulging oneself in 3 large meals each day, it is much healthier and easier on the metabolism to eat 5 smaller meals each day (e.g. better digestion, easier on the lower intestine to deposit wastes; whereas larger meals are tougher on the digestive track and may call for the use of laxatives). However, psychiatrists with Yale Medical School have found that people who suffer from Binge Eating Disoder (BED) and consume 3 meals per day weigh less than those who have more frequent meals. Eating can also be a way of making money (see competitive eating). Pie eating contests are one of these competitions. Sometimes people eat on picnics with family or friends.

[edit] Disorders

Physiologically, eating is generally triggered by hunger, but there are numerous physical and psychological conditions that can affect appetite and disrupt normal eating patterns. These include depression, food allergies, ingestion of certain chemicals, bulimia, anorexia nervosa, pituitary gland misfunction and other endocrine problems, and numerous other illnesses and eating disorders.

A chronic lack of nutritious food can cause various illnesses, and will eventually lead to starvation. When this happens in a locality on a massive scale it is considered a famine.

If eating and drinking is not possible, as is often the case when recovering from surgery, alternatives are enteral nutrition and parenteral nutrition.

The concept of an "eating disorder" presumes a norm, of which the disorder is a deviation; an important concept in medicine and psychiatry. A norm is often what a majority believes to be acceptable, however as belief requires no proof the complexities multiply as to what is really a "norm". Historically, the belief eating 3 meals per day was considered "normal", and hence an eating disorder would be eating more (or less) than 3 meals per day. With the advent of the science of thermodynamics and calorie theory, the belief that people can eat 5 or 6 "small" meals per day has come into widespread use. Since people are notoriously imprecise at estimating calories, overeating is easier to recognize when limits are put on the number of meals per day instead of the number of calories. Since there is no common, accepted belief about how many meals per day are to be eaten anymore, there is no more "norm" and hence the term eating disorder itself may be irrelevant. Taken to its extreme, it could be said that all of North American society is suffering from an "eating disorder" as there is no agreement on the number of meals per day that should be eaten.

See main article: Eating disorder

[edit] Wolfing

For dietary, religious, or alternative medicine purposes, some people may choose to consume more food than necessary, even after uncomfortably full. Such practices are called wolfing, named after the wolf. Wolfing may lead to obesity or malnutrition if the food or substance consumed depletes nutritional stores in the body. Chronic wolfing may also be a sign of binge eating disorder.