“Starving” – A Word You Should Never use Lightly
When it comes to your own body shape and image we all tend to get a bit self centered. After all you’re the star of your own show.
The diet a fitness industry marketers know this and key on this narrow view and in doing so insult and disrespect a lot of people along the way. I’m talking specifically about the use of the word “starvation” and the phrase “starvation mode” as well as the word “hungry” and “hunger”.
We have learned, and it has become socially acceptable to describe the way we feel with all of these words.
I feel as though it is wrong and we should learn to remove these words from our vocabulary about ourselves, and I’ll tell you why.
I’ve been doing Eat Stop Eat for over 3 years. In other words, I’ve added 24 hour fasts on a weekly basis for the past three years.
I’ve done a few 48 hour fasts, a bunch of 30 and 36 hour fasts, and I’ve even tested out a 72 hour fast <– pretty boring.
And at no point during any of these fasts have I ever felt what I would call true hunger.
If you haven’t gone more than 3 days without food then I don’t think you have any idea what true hunger feels like. Even after 72 hours without food I didn’t feel anything I would describe as hunger. In fact, my craving or desire for food was much greater within the first 12-18 hours of my 72 hour fast, after that I was on cruise control for the next two days.
This brings me to my point for today.
And that is about the word “Starving” and the word “hungry”.
It absolutely makes my blood boil when I hear people say “I’m starving”…even though they have just eating a few hours ago, or at least have eaten within the past 8-12 hours.
Even after 24 hours I don’t feel anything that I would describe as “hunger” let alone “starving”.
I think the cavalier use of the word “starving” in our pop culture is a complete and total insult and lack of respect for the millions (and billions) of people who are in fact currently starving to death as you read this.
And if you’re reading this, then I can almost guarantee there is no way you know what “starvation” or true “hunger” feels like.
My request is that you stop and think before you ever use the word “starving” or “hungry” in reference to yourself ever again.
If you think my opinion is too harsh have a look at the pictures below of what real starvation looks like. Take a good long look, because these pictures are an example of what people are going through right now.
These are the only people who know what true hunger really feels like. And they sure as hell have every right to say “I’m hungry” and “I’m starving”. You on the other hand have no right to utter these words in reference to yourself unless you are in a similar state as these unfortunate children.
Just imagine walking up to one of these children and saying to them “man I missed lunch, I’m starving”. I hope the thought of saying such a thing to one of these people disgusts you, because it does to me.
The point of today’s post is just for a little perspective.
You and I don’t EVER eat because we’re hungry, or because we’re “starving” (man do I ever hate this expression).
You and I eat because we CHOOSE to, and are fortunate enough to have the luxury to do so.
I’m issuing a challenge to you to remove the words ‘hungry’ and ‘starving’ from your vocabulary as it relates to you.
In other words, from now on, try not to refer to yourself as “hungry” or “starving” but rather admit to yourself that you would like to eat, or would enjoy eating now. <– this second type of statement is much more accurate to reality and might just help us all appreciate what we have a little more.
Oh and if you want some weight loss advice….Eat Less.
John
9 Responses to ““Starving” – A Word You Should Never use Lightly”
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October 28th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
You are so right here. We don’t know what hunger is. I don’t like people who has to go to Mac Donald’s or Burger King because they feel hungry ‘as they say’
I always feel very sad when I see photographs like this. We couls solve this food problem around the world if people were just eating only what the need.
Great post! Thank you
October 28th, 2009 at 11:16 pm
I agree with the spirit of this post, but would caution against extremism or elitism here with respect to simple word usage, especially with the word “hungry.” The definition of hunger includes varying degrees, from a simple craving or “uneasy sensation” (cf. Merriam Webster dictionary) to an urgent need for food. Starvation is more clear-cut as it implies genuine suffering and deprivation, not just a sensation. We might even throw “famished” into the mix of flippantly used words. At the end of the day this is a great reminder of how fortunate we are to be in the position to willingly choose not to eat for a period of time, a la Eat Stop Eat. This would likely baffle one of our truly starving fellow humans.
October 29th, 2009 at 1:55 am
Lou,
You bring up a good point, and the controversy over the word ‘hunger’ is what I am getting at here. I’m actually calling into question the definition of hunger in the dictionary to some degree as I feel we’ve turned it into something it might not be.
I think we all have different ideas of what ‘hungry’ actually means. I think the current definition is proving to be inadequate. If you’ve done Eat Stop Eat for any appreciable length of time (which I’m assuming you have) then you probably had a bit of a paradigm shift about what ‘hungry’ means to you as it did for me.
This is why I also included hungry as a word that shouldn’t be used as liberally as we all use it.
The definition you provided from the dictionary seems to be very vague. A craving or uneasy sensation seems to be completely unlike “an urgent need for food”.
When I wrote this post I was thinking more of the ‘urgent need for food’ definition of ‘hungry’.
A craving is just that, a craving, and I think most people would not confuse ‘craving’ with ‘hungry’. same goes for ‘uneasy sensation’.
My whole point was a catch all term like ‘hungry’ allows for us to take ‘an uneasy sensation’ and turn it into “an urgent need for food”.
The kids in the above pic’s are starving and truly have an ‘urgent need for food’ which seems to be much different than a ‘craving’.
Would you look at those kids and say to yourself “they must be hungry” or would you say “they must be having a craving or uneasy sensation”?
I hope this explains my point with more clarity.
JB
October 29th, 2009 at 9:12 am
John,
I must say I like your posts a lot. They are refreshing as you never keep to the everyday black and white simplicity. I feel there are at least two different points in question here. On the one hand you are talking about expressions of our languages, often these are figures of speech like ‘I’m starving’ or ‘I could eat a cow/horse’. I believe the main reason why we use them is to make our speech more expressive, more interesting, and I think there is nothing wrong with that.
On the other hand – and I guess that was you real point – the use of such expressions reflect our typical western attitude to our own conformity and personal importance. We are accustomed to get everything we want fastest and best, we are not used to having to wait or working for something. I use Eat Stop Eat too, and people keep asking me how I can go for a whole day without food. They never try, so they don’t know. They don’t want to feel unconfortable, don’t want to try things that need some effort. Normally the quality of our western life is measued by the comfort, ease, prosperity and joy of it. Also this world is only about ‘ME’, being the most important figure in the middle, not about respecting others. How else could children starve on this planet?
You can take the horse to the water, but you cannot make it drink – as the saying goes. You tell people how to lose weight, they listen, then they don’t change. We have the media, we actually have information and pictures about starving children, and still we are preoccupied with the variety and joy of our own food every day.
I think it is this stubborn narrow-mindedness that we should forget about. And the key word perhaps IS ‘respect’: respect your own mind and body. Care for them and use them well. Respect nature and other human beings. Respect food, and use it well too. And it is time to realise: even if we may feel somewhat unconfortable, even if we suffer a bit, the sun rises every day.
October 29th, 2009 at 11:33 am
Amy,
Yup you got it. The whole point was the ease with which we use these words, and the sliding definitions they carry.
If our pop culture slowly erodes the true meaning of a word then that word becomes completely meaningless.
We all think in words, so I wanted to shake up some thought in people and get them to realize a bigger picture when they are speaking and thinking about eating and weight loss.
The first step to making any real change in the state of the world as it pertains to people starving is to first bring it into all of our awareness. This is partly why I put the magnifying glass on both words.
It really is difficult for anyone in modern western industrialized cultures to use either word in reference to themselves if they stop even just for a moment and thought about the bigger picture.
JB
October 29th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Great Post, John.
October 29th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
This was a hell of an eye opener John.
October 30th, 2009 at 11:45 pm
John,
I can appreciate what you’re trying to accomplish. Yes, I’ve been doing Eat Stop Eat since the beginning of this year and to say it has caused a paradigm shift in terms of my concept of hunger and relationship with food is an understatement. I would love to convince everyone to try Eat Stop Eat and reevaluate their approach to eating, but I don’t think exhorting them for simply using a word figuratively is the way to do it. If anything it will just serve to alienate them. (There are people in third world countries who don’t always have ready access to potable water and who suffer from dehydration–should we also correct our friends and family when they say that they’re thirsty?) I suppose we could split hairs over semantics ad infinitum. At the end of the day we’re on the same side: most people in the “developed” world have forgotten (or even more sadly were never properly educated about) the basic purpose of food, probably because we have access to it in such abundance. As with most things it’s often not until you’re actually deprived of something (willingly or unwillingly) that you realize the extent to which you truly need it. Our best chance of having an impact is to be living examples of moderation. Thanks for all the great posts!
Lou
November 2nd, 2009 at 2:12 am
Great post.
I still use the word hungry, but I can’t remember the last time I knowingly used “starving”. It’s a bit of a pet peeve of mine now also. Especially when the person is a bit chubby and I know they just ate 3 hours ago. I usually tell them to shut up.
I used to be a guy that thought he was starving every 3 hours when my stomach started cramping (probably junk food gas). It’s all mental!
Now I fast daily in the 18-26 hour range, regularly into the 40+ hour mark (today), and up to 14 days before. I will second that virtually nobody in an industrialized country is starving! I’ve found after the 4th day the “hunger” starts to go away.
I recently did a 3 day fast/hunt on foot with nothing but water. Many of your senses are heightened when you’re fasted (especially smell). I fasted over 100 something hours the week leading up to the hunt so it wasn’t like my tank was full going into it. After re-hydrating I think I showed a 7-8lb loss. http://castlegrok.com/kill-to-eat-episode-8/