Book Portfolio: Quarter 2

This non-fiction book, Hunger by Sharman A. Russell talks about where and what type of people hunger affects. Like the obvious, those who don't have food, those who do and how it effects both their bodies. It also hits on what makes people starve themselves and what being hungry does to a human body. One main theme in this book popped out at me that hunger affects many different types of people in lots of different ways. It really makes you think about what being hungry can do to the body and how it affects different types of people.

It first starts off explaining how food goes through with digestive system. It starts with you seeing a commercial for food on TV. You get hungry seeing the food and your mouth starts to salivate. The brain sends a message to the stomach saying you are hungry. The food then goes down through your body, and gets broken down. The author goes through the process quite thoroughly here. This is to show you exactly how the body responds when normally, when you are just regularly hungry. She then tells us about people who have anorexia nervosa, they chose to starve themselves. In the book it says "the complexity of one woman's self-starvation might yet be a mix of chemistry, Vogue, Father's expectations and ancient imperatives." What Russell meant was that these people have many different reasons why they might chose to starve themselves. Such as she has a bad self-image, pressures from celebrities or expectations from her family. The body obviously is not used to this so it responds to not having any food for elongated periods of time. Some signs are emotional breakdowns and a big loss of weight. The body might even reject the food for not having it in there for so long. These were just a couple examples of what hunger does to the body, and what people it can effect. This isn't it though because hunger can effect people who eat every single day, but just don't feel satisfied. It doesn't matter who you are, you still become hungry.

After reading this book I realized that in the world today, hunger has become such a big issue. There are starving children in Africa who have barely any food and even in America there are many hungry people every single day. Yet there are some people who decide to starve themselves because they feel too fat. Even way back in the middle ages there were people starving themselves. Only, back then young women would starve themselves in order to get closer to their God. They believed that not eating would prove their holiness and loyalty to God. This just shows that hunger can be practiced for complete different reasons. Yet there was and still now extremely hungry people who could use the food these people has, which completely amazes me.

I think this book made lots of people think again about how many people really starve themselves everyday. It really opens your eyes to see why people decide to not eat and what it can do to them. She did a great job with explaining thoroughly what the body is like regularly when it is just a bit hungry. Then when it has been starved she showed us what it was like then. Sharman really made me not take for granted the food that is given to me. I also now understand there is more than just one reason why people will not eat. I have a new perspective on those people now and I am glad I have gained that.