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Despite little interest in culinary matters prior to the experiment, almost 40% of the men mentioned cooking as part of their post-experiment plans. For some, the fascination was so great that they actually changed occupations after the experiment: three became chefs, and one went into agriculture.
During starvation, the volunteers’ eating habits underwent remarkable changes. The men spent much of the day planning how they would eat their allotment of food. Much of their behavior served the purpose of prolonging the ingestion and hedonic appeal or saliency of food. The men often ate in silence and devoted total attention to consumption.
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During the starvation regimen, all of the volunteers reported increased hunger; some appeared able to tolerate the experience fairly well, but for others it created intense concern, or even became intolerable. **Several men failed to adhere to their diets and reported episodes of bulimia followed by self-reproach. While working in a grocery store, one subject suffered a complete loss of willpower and ate several cookies, a sack of popcorn, and two overripe bananas before he could “regain control” of himself. He immediately suffered a severe emotional upset, with nausea, and upon returning to the laboratory he vomited. He was self-deprecatory, expressing disgust and self-criticism. **(Keys et al., 1950,p. 887)
During the eighth week of starvation, another subject “flagrantly broke the dietary rules, eating several sundaes and malted milks; he even stole some penny candies. He promptly confessed the whole episode, [and] became self-deprecatory” (Keys et al.,1950, p. 884).
When presented with greater amounts of food during rehabilitation, many of the men lost control of their appetites and “ate more or less continuously” (Keys et al., 1950, p. 843). Even after 12 weeks of rehabilitation, the men frequently complained that they experienced an increase in hunger immediately following a large meal:
[One of the volunteers] ate immense meals (a daily estimate of 5,000 to 6,000 calories) and yet started snacking" an hour after he finished a meal. [Another] ate as much as he could hold during the three regular meals and ate snacks in the morning, afternoon and evening. (Keys et al., 1950, p. 846)
This gluttony resulted in a high incidence of headaches, gastrointestinal distress and unusual sleepiness. Several men had spells of nausea and vomiting. One man required aspiration and hospitalization for several days. (Keys et at., 1950, p. 843)
“Subject No. 20 stuffs himself until he is bursting at the seams, to the point of being nearly sick and still feels hungry; No. 120 reported that he had to discipline himself to keep from eating so much as to become ill; No. 1 ate until he was uncomfortably full; and subject no. 30 had so little control over the mechanics of “piling it in” that he simply had to stay away from food because he could not find a point of satiation even when he was “full to the gills.” . . . Subject no. 26 would just as soon have eaten six meals instead of three.” (Keys et al., 1950, p. 847)
After about five months of rehabilitation, the majority of the men reported some normalization of their eating patterns; however, for some the extreme overconsumption persisted: “No. 108 would eat and eat until he could hardly swallow any more, and then he felt like eating half an hour later” (Keys et al., 1950, p. 847).
***More than 8 months after renourishment, a few men were still eating abnormal amounts, and one man still reported consuming “about 25 per cent more than his pre-starvation amount; once he started to reduce but got so hungry he could not stand it” ***(Keys et al., 1950, p. 847).
Factors that distinguished men who rapidly normalized their eating from those who continued to eat prodigious amounts were not identified. However, the important point here is that there were tremendous differences among volunteers in their responses to the starvation experience, and that a subset of these men developed bulimia, which persisted many months after they were permitted free access to food.
Emotional Changes
***The strict procedures used to select subjects for the experiment led the experimenters to conclude that the “psychobiological ‘stamina’ of the subjects was unquestionably superior to that likely to be found in any random or more generally representative sample of the population” ***(Keys et al., 1950, p. 916). Although the subjects were psychologically healthy prior to the experiment, most experienced significant emotional changes as a result of semi-starvation. Some reported transitory and others protracted periods of depression, with an overall lowering of the threshold for depression. Occasionally elation was observed, but this was inevitably followed by “low periods.” Although the men had quite tolerant dispositions prior to starvation, tolerance was replaced by irritability and frequent outbursts of anger. For most subjects, anxiety became more evident.
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Various changes reflected an overall slowing of the body’s physiological processes. There were decreases in body temperature, heart rate, and respiration, as well as in basal metabolic rate (BMR). BMR is the amount of energy (calories) that the body requires at rest (i.e. no physical activity) in order to carry out normal physiological processes. It accounts for about two-thirds of the body’s total energy needs, with the remainder being used during physical activity. ***At the end of semi-starvation, the men’s BMRs had dropped by about 40% from normal. This drop, as well as other physical changes, reflects the body’s extraordinary ability to adapt to low caloric intake by reducing its need for energy. One volunteer described that it was as if his “body flame [were] burning as low as possible to conserve precious fuel and still maintain life process” (***Keys et al., 1950, p. 852).
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The changes in body fat and muscle in relation to overall body weight during semi-starvation and rehabilitation are of considerable interest. While weight declined about 25%, the percentage of body fat fell almost 70%, and **muscle decreased about 40%. **Upon re-feeding, a greater proportion of the “new weight” was fat; in the eighth month of rehabilitation, the volunteers were at about 100% of their original body weight, but had approximately 140% of their original body fat! How did the men feel about their weight gain during rehabilitation?
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**One of the most notable implications of the starvation experiment is that it provides compelling evidence against the popular notion that body weight is easily altered if one simply exercises a bit of “will power.” **It also demonstrates that the body is not simply “reprogrammed” to adjust to a lower weight once it has been achieved. The volunteers’ experimental diet was unsuccessful in overriding their bodies’ strong propensity to defend a particular weight level. One might argue that this is fine as long as a person is not obese to start with; as we point out later, however, these same principles seem to apply just as much to those who are naturally heavy as to those who have always been lean