Appetite changes under free-living conditions during Ramadan fasting

During the fasting month of Ramadan, Muslims abstain from food and drink from sunrise until sunset. This change of eating pattern provides an opportunity to investigate factors controlling hunger and thirst. A group of healthy Muslims (15 men and 26 women) living in Reading, U.K. made hourly ratings of their hunger, mood and thirst, and recorded their food and drink intake on specified days before, during and after Ramadan between January and March 1996. There were no significant changes in body weight over Ramadan. Rated hunger increased substantially during the daily fast, and hunger was higher for the women than the men during the earlier days of Ramadan, whereas later, on average, fasting levels of hunger were very similar for both sexes (significant gender x day interaction,p<0. 001). During Ramadan, the men tended to spend much of their time away from home, and may therefore have largely avoided eating-related cues during the daily fast. The women, however, were frequently involved in preparing food to be eaten later after sunset, which suggests an explanation for the results based on the external cue control of hunger. That is, unreinforced exposure to food cues in this context may have led to a decrease in the capacity of these cues to stimulate hunger.