FREE ESSAY ON BRAIN STRUCTURE

BRAIN STRUCTURE

The part of the body that motivates eating is the hypothalamus. The small gland is located
in the midline at the base of the brain, just below the hypothalamus, and interacts
closely with the pituitary gland and acts in coordination with the reticular formation.
The two components of the hypothalamus dealing with hunger are the lateral hypothalamus
and the ventromedial nucleus. The lateral part is what allows a person to feel hungry and
sends out signals to the rest of the body that one is ready to eat. If this part is
damadged, one would not feel hunger and would experience aphasia, which is starving. The
ventromedial nucleus gives satiety, or the feeling that one is full. This component is
also necessary, because an injury here would produce hyperphasia, when the body does not
know when to stop eating, and would surely become obese.
Along with his theory of emotions, Schachter studied obesity and the reasons for the
uncontrollable urges to binge by those who are overweight. His research reveals that much
of the overeating is due to the reinforcements that the obese find in food. He mentions
that while those with an appropriate weight are stimulated to eat when aroused by
internal cues, obese look for other factors to reinforce their need to eat. For example:
the smell of food, the way a platter is served, the colors and decorations on a plate, or
even the contact comfort that the food produces in the hands or in the tongue. This
euphoric way of eating might be satisfying during dinner time, but in the long run, it is
extremely dangerous. By eating only what appeals to vision, smell, or texture, one does
not satisfy the bodily needs for varied nutrients, vitamins, and minerals, and therefore
be mal-nutrinioed and be exposed to obesity and other illness as well.