Loss of appetite is a sign. It is usually a sign of something amiss with your system. It could be mental or physical. Hunger is a fundamental need and a normally functioning human being is said to be hungry 3 hours after the last meal. This can vary, according to each person’s metabolism and fitness levels. But a healthy body should feel hungry within 3 hours of every meal.So if you aren’t feeling hungry, it could only mean that something is causing it.
Here are some common causes of loss of appetite:
1 . Chronic Stress
Do you constantly feel irritable around mid-day? Find it hard to get through those couple of hours? Think back to when your last meal was. The state of constant irritability is caused due to hunger and such a person is usually said to be “hangry” in popular culture. This is when anger is caused by not being able to eat on time. When we skip meals, we sometimes are not cognizant of how it affects us. A hungry person is usually not the best person to make a decision. To ensure your decisions are not influenced by hunger, it is important to keep your appetite in check.
2 . Depression
Depression and other mental problems could lead to a loss of hunger. This is a psychological phenomenon that can be treated only with professional help. Loss of hunger is rather a symptom in this case that you need to seek help.
3 . Pain (physical or mental)
Some deep personal trauma, like losing a loved one can lead to a loss of appetite. Grief manifests itself in many ways in your body and one of it is a loss of appetite. Some sort of intense physical pain can also lead to this because our focus is on the pain rather than on our basic physical needs.
4 . Certain Medical Conditions
Sometimes loss of hunger could mean an actual illness. For example, anorexia is a chronic illness linked to loss of hunger. Usually, loss of hunger is listed as a symptom for many illnesses. It is important to seek the help of your physician when you feel the loss to hunger, even if just to identify the reason behind it. Deficiency of thyroid hormone (hypothyroidism) can also cause decreased appetite. Similarly, recent infections. viral or bacterial can lead to a decreased appetite.
5 . Smoking and Alcohol
Sometimes you are not hungry because you substitute food with something else. Some people smoke to mask hunger and some people who are chronic alcoholics substitute food with alcohol. Addiction to drugs also can lead to a loss of hunger, as a side effect of the drug, as well as using the drug as a substitute.
We don’t usually count the loss of hunger for much. Sometimes we just don’t feel like eating, so we think it is okay to skip a meal. While this is okay once in a while, continued loss of hunger can mean something. Seek help to ensure that whatever is causing the loss of appetite is taken care of. Your body signals you only when it needs help. It is important for you to listen to it.