Let’s return to the Minnesota Starvation Experiment for a moment, but this time, let’s focus on the psychological responses that occurred. Over the course of their weight loss, Keys’s subjects developed a remarkable obsession with food. In addition to their inescapable, gnawing hunger, their conversations, thoughts, fantasies, and dreams revolved around food and eating—part of a phenomenon Keys called “semistarvation neurosis.” They became fascinated by recipes and cookbooks, and some even began collecting cooking utensils. Like leptin-deficient adolescents, their mental lives gradually began
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