Activity Anorexia: An Animal Model and Theory of Human Self-Starvation

Activity anorexia is a biobehavioral process that occurs in animals. Laboratory rats are fed once per day, they lose weight, but quickly adjust to the feeding regime. Other animals receive a similar meal schedule and are allowed to run voluntarily on an activity wheel—these animals die of starvation. Wheel running becomes excessive when food is restricted, and animals may run more than 10 Km/d. Interestingly, excessive physical activity interferes with food consumption even though the experimental procedures ensure that eating and running cannot occur at the same time (Epling et al., 1983 ). This chapter describes the animal model and the biobehavioral theory of activity anorexia and extends the theory to human self-starvation