APPETITE. Appetite is a term implying a strong desire to acquire or participate in, exemplified by terms such as sexual appetite or appetite for life. In the context of food, appetite is used to describe a wanting or liking for particular foods, usually on the basis of their sensory properties (taste and texture) or a psychological attribute (perceived value or symbolic status). In this way appetite is usually distinguished from hunger, which implies a desire or seeking for food arising from a state of need or nutritional deficit. At the beginning of the twenty-first century the understanding of appetite achieves special importance because of its potential role in the worldwide epidemic of obesity, sometimes called a pandemic. Given that, in many parts of the world, people are surrounded by a plentiful supply of food that prevents chronic hunger (though permitting normal meal-to-meal hunger), the capacity to eat food in the...