What do food cravings mean? Why it's chocolate at four o'clock

A food craving is a strong want for one particular food. Mela Theory, the framework behind Nutrimelab, reads it as information about the moment you are in, seen through the time of day, the habits around it and how you feel. Nothing here asks you to weigh or count anything.

Say it's four o'clock on a Thursday. The afternoon meeting has finished, your inbox is still full, and you find yourself thinking about the bar of chocolate in your desk drawer. An apple won't do, and a biscuit won't quite do either. It has to be chocolate, and it has to be now.

Many people have a version of this, and you may have read somewhere that the craving means something is wrong. This article looks at what Mela sees a craving like that as more likely to be telling you, and what you can do with it. It belongs to this week's theme, the on-it, off-it swing, since a craving is often the moment the swing starts.

> Key Takeaways > > - A food craving is an intense want for one specific food. Research describes cravings as common and closely tied to liking. > - Mela reads a craving as information about the moment, often the time since you ate, the habits of your day or how you feel. > - This week's practice is one chosen, low-pressure meeting with a food you crave, with your thoughts noticed before, during and after.

What do food cravings mean?

In Mela's reading, a food craving tends to mean that you want a particular food for a reason connected to the moment. Research describes a craving as an intense want for one specific food, closely tied to liking it. Mela sees the reason as information, often how long it has been since you ate, the habits of your day or a feeling.

Cravings are very ordinary. Andrew Hill's 2007 review of the psychology of food craving describes them as pleasure-driven responses to food, marked out by how intense and how specific they are, and reports them in the majority of young adults. He also notes that cravings are closely tied to liking a food but do not necessarily lead to eating more of it (Hill, 2007). It is a review rather than a single study.

An older survey of over 1,000 college students found that 97% of the women and 68% of the men reported food cravings, and that chocolate was the food craved most often (Weingarten and Elston, 199190019-O)). It relied on what students said about themselves, and the authors point out the limits of self-report, so read the numbers as a rough picture of how common cravings are in that group.

Even the word itself is partly cultural. When Hormes and Rozin looked for a word meaning craving in 20 languages, with native speakers as their guides, only 17% of those languages had one (Hormes and Rozin, 2010). It was a small study of language, but it is a reminder that English has a ready name for this feeling and many languages do not.

A craving and hunger often arrive together. In Mela's reading, hunger tends to build slowly and accept most foods, while a craving often arrives quickly and wants one thing. If you've eaten enough and something still seems missing, being full but still wanting a particular taste has its own article.

Why is it chocolate at four o'clock?

Mela reads a craving for chocolate at four o'clock as often having more to do with the afternoon than with the chocolate. It places it mostly in the habits layer, with the time, the place, the break and the gap since lunch all feeding in. Emotions and the pleasure of the taste play their part too.

Mela describes six layers that shape eating, which are cues, habits, emotions, culture, identity and biology. Four o'clock sits squarely in habits. If you have had something sweet with a cup of tea at about this time for years, the hour itself tends to bring the want with it. The desk drawer, the kettle and the end of a meeting can each become part of the routine that calls up the chocolate before you've thought about it.

Mela sees biology playing a part as well. Lunch may have been several hours ago, and by four o'clock you may be properly hungry. In that reading, hunger like that can arrive dressed as a craving for something quick and sweet.

Chocolate also has the advantage of being something people like very much. In a 1991 survey of University of Pennsylvania students and their parents, chocolate was the most craved food among the women, craved by almost half of them, and the authors found that the main draw seemed to be the taste and texture. They found little evidence linking liking for chocolate to its drug-like effects (Rozin, Levine and Stoess, 199190022-K)). It was one American survey, mostly of correlations, so it describes a pattern in that group.

Emotions are the other layer that often joins in. A dull afternoon, a frustrating email or a quiet sense of being worn out can each add to the pull. If you aren't sure whether you're hungry or something else is going on, am I hungry, or is it something else walks through the difference. One more input is worth naming. Hill's review notes that trying to go without a particular food is associated with craving it more, and the pillar for this week goes into that in more depth.

Why do I crave sugar?

Mela often links a sugar craving with being tired or in need of a lift, the habits and biology layers working together. A familiar routine meets a body that has been running for a while, and something sweet is quick to eat.

Say it's a long day and you slept badly. By mid-afternoon you may want something sweet more than usual, and the want is real. In my work I often see sweet cravings ease on days when lunch is more filling and the afternoon has a proper break in it, and come back on days when both are missing.

Sweet cravings at other times of day have their own patterns. Mela reads wanting something sweet late in the evening as often tied to a long gap earlier in the day, which what a long gap between meals does later explains. In Mela's reading, wanting something sweet straight after a meal is more often about satisfaction, the meal not quite hitting the spot.

What to do with a craving

When a craving arrives, treat it as information before you decide anything. Notice the time, when you last ate, and how the afternoon has gone. Then decide whether you want the food.

If you want the chocolate, have it, sitting down, with your attention on the taste. Then notice how it was. Some days a couple of squares will be exactly right. Other days you'll notice that what you wanted was a break or a proper snack.

If what you notice is hunger, eating something more filling as well as the chocolate, or before deciding about it, is a reasonable choice. If what you notice is a feeling, the food might still be part of the answer, alongside a walk or a cup of tea away from your desk.

Is a craving a sign I've failed?

Mela treats a craving as information about the moment, not a sign you've failed, and as tending to say more about your day than about your character. In Mela's reading, the sense of failure that often follows belongs to an old food rule rather than to the craving itself.

The students in that college survey are a reminder of how common this is. Most of them indulged their cravings at least half the time, and the women tended to feel worse about it afterwards than the men did. In my work that bad feeling often seems to make the next craving feel bigger.

This week's practice

This week, choose one low-pressure meeting with a food you crave. The four o'clock chocolate is a good one, if that feels easy enough. Low-pressure means an ordinary day, where nothing much depends on it.

Notice your thoughts at three points. Before you eat, notice the time, when you last ate, and what the rule in your head says about the food. While you eat, notice the taste and whether you're rushing. Afterwards, notice how you feel in the next half hour, and whether the craving has gone quiet.

Write a line about each on your phone. Say it's Thursday. The note might read "Before, 4pm, lunch at 12, tired, felt I shouldn't. During, nice, slowed down. After, fine, back to work." Nothing in this practice asks you to weigh, count, restrict or compensate, and the next meal is the one you would have had anyway.

Today, decide which craving you'll meet this week and on which afternoon.

Next step

See the 7-week programme