Not Enough to Eat

If a man gets hungry enough, strange things begin to happen to his manners, his emotions and even his mind. During the war, 36 conscientious objectors volunteered as guinea pigs for experiments in human starvation. In the current Journal of Clinical Psychology, the results are reported by the researchers (Drs. Joseph C. Franklin, Burtrum C. Schiele, Josef Brozek, Ancel Keys) who conducted the experiments at the University of Minnesota's laboratory of physiological hygiene.

The volunteers were prepared for semi-starvation by three months' good eating with a daily average of 3,492*calories. Then for six months they were fed two carefully rationed meals a day totaling 1,570 calories. Sample meals: pancakes, syrup, applesauce, cornbread and jam in the morning; potato soup, stew and potatoes in the evening.

Although they knew that nobody would try to shove them aside, the hungry men began taking great care to guard their places in the chow line. They showed a strongly possessive attitude toward their food; at table, some leaned suspiciously over their trays, "protecting" their rations with their arms. The men were "cultured and refined," the researchers reported, but soon they all unashamedly licked their dishes. As they got hungrier & hungrier, food became the chief subject of their conversation and their daydreams. They became fond of poring over cookbooks and hotel menus.

Some of the men started to replan their lives and talked of becoming cooks or farmers. Sex fantasies and dreams declined; sexual impulses disappeared in all but a few. Said one: "I have no more sexual feeling than a sick oyster."

The men grew increasingly irritable and joked less & less. Eventually they grew too apathetic to bother with shaving, brushing their teeth or combing their hair. Their interest in study gradually collapsed, but they felt closely identified with their group and with the starving throughout the world. They had occasional "spells of elation, sometimes bordering on ecstasy," or were unduly depressed and discouraged. For four of the men the strain was too great: they cheated by eating extra food and were dropped from the experiment.

After six months of hunger, the remaining 32 needed six months to return to normal. During the first three months of rehabilitation their bad table manners and bad study habits showed little improvement; some men actually became more depressed and irritable than during semi-starvation. As the effects of starvation wore off, each man lost his sense of close identity with his group and began worrying about his own personal plans for a normal future.

*Present daily average in Britain, 2,700 calories; in Germany, around 1,550 calories.

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