Emma Miller
A combination of factors can affect the severity and frequency of your food cravings. A strong desire to eat something is not always just a desire.
According to Tiffany Mendell, a registered dietitian in New York City, there are several physiological reasons for your cravings.
The severity and frequency of your food cravings can be affected by a combination of unhealthy lifestyle factors, such as dehydration, lack of sleep, and an unbalanced diet.
Making sure you’re getting enough healthy fats, proteins, and complex carbohydrates to keep you satisfied is important to curb cravings. Stress can also play an important role: “it is suggested that cortisol, one of the body’s stress hormones, may enhance the brain’s reward system for food and cravings, making it harder to resist cravings.”
And, of course, insufficient sleep can also have the effect of altering the body’s hunger hormones and causing us to produce more of a hormone called ghrelin (which increases hunger and appetite) and less leptin (aka the satiety hormone).
If you crave salty foods, you may be dehydrated
Dehydration-whether it’s because you drank too much alcohol last night, are on a long flight, or because of another thirsty situation-can be accompanied by serious salt cravings.
“Sodium is the main electrolyte in the body; electrolytes (which are minerals) help maintain fluid balance in the body,” says Mendell. “Dehydration is essentially the loss of electrolytes and fluids, which can occur through excessive sweating, excessive alcohol consumption, or vomiting/diarrhea. Thus, salt cravings can indicate dehydration as the body seeks to restore electrolyte and fluid balance.”
In addition, according to the Institute of Medicine, some studies have shown that salt cravings may indicate a mild calcium deficiency in the body. However, more research is needed to strengthen the link between salt cravings and the need for calcium-rich foods.
If you crave fatty foods, you may need more sleep
Lack of sleep can cause a person to eat an average of 385 extra calories the next day, according to a November 2016 meta-analysis published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
What’s more, lack of sleep can have a direct impact on cravings – and especially on one type of food. “Lack of sleep can also increase blood levels of chemical compounds called endocannabinoids,” says Mendell. “This increases the value of food and causes cravings for fatty and high-calorie foods.” If you usually struggle with strong food cravings, try to focus on improving your sleep and hygiene habits.
If you crave sweet foods, you may need to eat a more balanced diet
Sugar cravings can occur for several reasons. “Repeated consumption of too sweet foods distorts the taste buds,” says Mendell. “This makes less sweet foods, such as fruits and vegetables, seem less tasty.”
This is particularly bad news for people who take in a lot of artificial sweeteners (think: diet sodas and sugar-free snacks), which are 200 to 600 times sweeter than table sugar, according to a study published in the June 2010 Yale Journal of Biology.
In addition, if your diet is too high in refined carbohydrates, which can cause your blood sugar to spike and fall, you will want sugary foods to bring your blood sugar back up again.
