How can you get so full from dinner but somehow have room for dessert?
In: Biology
Both of the other comments are incorrect. It is not about eating more and no there is no hormone that expands the stomach. Hunger and fullness is determined by two systems. One is based on how stretched your stomach feels and the other is based on what nutrients you’re extracting from the food. You swallow a rock and your stomach will stretch—you’ll feel full until your body realizes there were no nutrients in the rock so you become hungry again. The reason why you always have room for dessert is that the nutrient based hunger system is programmed to increase hunger when presented with variety, the biological purpose of which is to vary the kinds of nutrients you get to maximize balance in your diet. Here’s an example; imagine cave man mike who only eats oranges all day everyday. Sure oranges have calories (as carbs) and vitamin C, but if thats all you eat you’ll die from a lack of protein or a lack of vitamin A, or D or E or zinc or copper etc. so since mammals are not born with biochemical degrees the body is simply conditioned to send a hunger signal when presented with a different kind of food because it maximizes your chances of getting different nutrients that your body needs.
When we help people lose weight we actually encourage a varied meal to already trigger that variety hunger response. Then when presented with dessert the hunger is less severe.
The other comments referencing dessert’s sugar and calorie density are incorrect. The density, opportunistic feeding and sugar’s effect on the stomach explain why we crave it in general. The reason why you feel hungry for dessert after you’ve already eaten is an entirely different mechanism.
Source: graduate degree in clinical nutrition
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