History of Psychology: Ethical Issue or Starvation Savior?
In Dr. Andi Lassiter’s History and Systems of Psychology course, students complete a project on the local history of psychology. The goal of the assignment is to research some aspect of psychology in the upper Midwest, such as local asylums or people / events related to psychology. Students also need to creatively tell others about their findings, and can choose to write a blog post for this site as a way to communicate their findings. For more information on this assignment, just use the contact form on this website to get in touch and we can share more details.
By Kaitlyn Bergsma
Minnesota has what some consider as “Minnesota nice”, however, would we consider starving a group of men nice? It sounds kind of crazy, but so much was learned about starvation, eating disorders, and how to recover from starvation from this unique but controversial experiment. I know that many people have been considered staving because of eating disorders but the Minnesota starvation experiment brings to light the negative effects that occur when our bodies are starving for food. This experiment needs to be discussed because although it probably isn’t considered ethical today, we still use the information gathered from it often.
This whole experiment started when World War 2 was ending. Many were starving and Ancel Keys along with Josef Brozek started to question how can we best recover from starvation? So, they gathered up 36 single men along with cooks and dieticians to perform an experiment at the University of Minnesota. At first, the men were told to eat whatever they want for three months. With those standards, there was a rough average of 3500 calories consumed daily. Next, was the hard part, they had to go six months being partially starved. This meant they were only allowed 1500 calories the whole day. If you consider a normal piece of pizza is around 280 calories that means the men were only eating a little over five pieces of pizza worth of calories over a full day. Then, there were three months that the experimenters tried to wean them out of starvation by restricting them to only about 2000 calories daily. Lastly, they were given eight weeks to eat whatever they wanted. That’s when this experiment got interesting. The participants started to eat between 7000 and 10000 calories a day. That is at least double the number of calories they normally consumed before the experiment.
It is important to keep in mind for the effects that were noticed that they didn’t get to sit around all day. The men had to go to school, work out, and help out in the lab all while on an extremely restrictive diet. Not a single part of the men was not affected by the partial starvation. Physically, their muscles were weakened, and they didn’t have a sex drive. Mentally, they became obsessed with food. They would constantly talk about what they wanted to eat, sharing recipes, they even got defensive about food after the experiment was completed. Many claimed to have other issues like depression and anxiety even though during their psychological testing it wasn’t shown.
Through the starvation experiment, the experimenters learned what psychologically and physically occurs to those who are starving, particularly in eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa. It explains why so many people with eating disorders are so meticulous about food and why many enjoy doing projects such as cooking and baking even though they don’t usually eat the final products. These people are reinforcing their starvation. The experiment discovered the only way we are going to “cure” starvation is if they eat a bunch of food. It sounds simple but yet so hard for the people who struggle with eating disorders. Psychologically they need to somehow understand that the only way to overcome an eating disorder is to eat according to this study.
The Minnesota starvation experiment is a partially unethical but also important experiment that divulges the effects of starvation and what we can do to improve it. It took starving 36 men over about nine months to see, in depth, what is happening to people who are starving. Through the experiment, they learned the only way starvation is recovered from is if they get enough food. Living with an eating disorder is hard both physically and mentally, and this experiment shows there is a dire need for those who are struggling from them to get help before their condition gets worse. So, even though this experiment wasn’t necessarily showing the “Minnesota nice” to its participants, those men have changed what we know about starvation and eating disorders.
References
Keys, A., Brozek, J., Henshel, A., Mickelson, O., & Taylor, H.L. (1950). The biology of human starvation, 1-2, University of Minnesota Press.
Baker, D., & Keramidas, N. (2013). Time capsule: The psychology of hunger. American Psychological Association, 44(9), 66. https://doi.org/10.1037/e575752013-023
Dulloo, A. G. (2021). Physiology of weight regain: Lessons from the classic Minnesota starvation experiment on human body composition regulation. Obesity Reviews, 22(S2). https://doi.org/10.1111/obr.13189
Gil, C. (n.d.). The starvation experiment. DukeHealth. https://eatingdisorders.dukehealth.org/education/resources/starvation-experiment
Wischmeyer, P. E. (2017). Tailoring nutrition therapy to illness and recovery. Critical Care, 21(S3). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13054-017-1906-8