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What is hyperphagia?

Hyperphagia is an abnormal condition of intense hunger and excessive eating.Hyperphagia is often used as a synonym for bulimia, a psychiatric disorder in which a person feels the need to eat a large amount of food and then purge themselves of (such as by self-induced vomiting). However, a person suffering from hyperphagia may not feel the need to desperately lose weight, as is often the case with bulimia.While bulimia and similar eating disorders are classified as mental disorders, hyperphagia is not. Instead, hyperphagia is a pathology, that is, an abnormal condition. It can be a symptom of a mental disorder or can have a physical cause, such as a severe brain injury. Medical research has also linked hyperphagia to disorders such as Prader-Willi syndrome, which is inherited from a parent.Hyperphagia is used in medicine to refer to eating done out of insatiable hunger, as opposed to gluttony, in which a person voluntarily chooses to eat too much.Hyperphagia is also used in natural science to refer to excessive eating that is done by animals, such as bears, before hibernating. In animals, eating is motivated by natural instincts, so hyperphagia is a normal behavior in certain animals.Example: Hyperphagia isn’t the same as bulimia, but it can be associated with bulimia.