The feeling that those who get moody whenever they eat late or miss out entirely has been termed as feeling ‘hangry’.
Although it wasn’t proven by science, researchers have recently confirmed through a scientific study that a lack of food can make people feel ‘hangry’ as they discovered a link between hunger and your mood and emotions.
According to The Guardian, in one of the first studies to explore how hunger affects emotions as people go about their daily lives, psychologists found that the more hungry people felt, the angrier they became.
The study came about after Prof Viren Swami, a social psychologist at Anglia Ruskin University, UK, was told that he was hangry and should do something about it.
This left him wondering if being hangry was a natural phenomenon.
In the journal Plos One, Swami wrote that he worked with researchers in Austria and Malaysia and recruited 64 adults aged 18 to 60 to record their emotions and feelings of hunger 5 times a day for 3 weeks.
Although the relationship between hunger and emotions has been studied in labs, the volunteers monitored their feelings as they went about their daily routines.
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Speaking on the study, the psychologists described how hunger was associated with stronger feelings of anger and irritability and lower levels of pleasure.
“It turns out that being hangry is a real thing.”
“We believe this is the first time that a link with negative emotions has been demonstrated with two different forms of self-reported hunger,” they said as they found that hunger was associated with 37% of changes in irritability, 34% in anger and 38% in pleasure.
Swami believes the study raises a serious point which is that children who go hungry to school are less likely to learn effectively and more likely to have behavioural problems.
He said that the priority is to ensure that pupils are adequately fed. “It’s essential to be able to identify emotions like being hangry so we can mitigate against the negative effects,” he added.
Meanwhile, for adults who find that their mood changes after skipping lunch, Swami’s advice is, “Don’t go hungry. For many people, that is easier said than done.”
Swami believes that being able to recognise and label the emotion can itself be of help.
“A lot of the time, we might be aware of what we are feeling but not understand the cause of it. If we can label it, we are better able to do something about it.”
Have you ever felt your mood change as a result of skipping a meal? Let us know in the comments.
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