A little knowledge can make reading fiction annoying

[conuly]

Though I suppose it might save a life, in this case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refeeding_syndrome

If your fictional character has been subsisting for a lengthy time on inadequate amounts of gruel, bread, and water - including some periods of just water - then even though they probably want to gorge themselves once freed from starvation it's best if they limit themselves at first, just until their body reacclimates.

If the person they're staying with has also endured periods of hunger or is a doctor then that person might know that and keep them from making themself gravely ill, or otherwise they might go "You poor thing!" and try to fatten them up right away, but at any rate, you might as well milk the situation for drama because if they straightaway down a five course dinner and suffer no ill effects some of us are going to raise an eyebrow.

I can tell you exactly where I first read about this, by the way - it was in the novel Just a Little Bit Lost, where the two get rescued from their accidental week in the woods and immediately are put on a diet of watered down gruel. Which is what they'd been eating in the woods, because they managed to get separated from their class trip carrying all the oatmeal, so our protagonist thought it was funny, but the nurses hastened to explain that you have to start slowly when you've been hungry even if it was just for a relatively short time.

Comments

[elayna]

Robert Heinlein and Alan Dean Foster both wrote stories where someone who hasn’t been eating well is rescued by someone who feeds them a full meal and then they promptly throw up.

[conuly]

Vomiting is the least-bad consequence of being given too much too soon, but still - and I don't say this very often! - let's all praise Heinlein for his realism. And also Alan Dean Foster, though I'm not sure if I've ever read anything of his, so I don't quite have an opinion on his writing.

[elayna]

I don't even remember which books it was, and they were probably written at least a decade or two apart, but I read them fairly close together, so they stuck in my brain. I always thought Foster was ripping off Heinlein a bit, though I suppose it's a natural thing to include. It's not like Heinlein had the trademark on having food deprived characters or using logical reactions.

[brokenallbroken]

ADF wrote the novelization of the original Star Wars movie (which is really good considering what [who] he was working with), and I maintain Splinter of the Mind's Eye is better than half the old EU. I liked the first few books of the Flinx and Spellsinger series, but I was in my early teens, so I can't vouch for my taste.

[sabotabby]

I know about this because of the Holocaust. Apparently many people survived the camps only to die shortly after liberation because of this.

[conuly]

I've heard about that!

Such a shitty thing. Obviously when confronted with people who are literally skin and bones all you want to do is give them food and lots of it. How terrible when what you want and what they want is the thing that gets them in the end.

[lilysea]

I know about this because of the Holocaust. Apparently many people survived the camps only to die shortly after liberation because of this

Yes, this is how I learned about it as well.

[frandroid]

HAAAAAA

[gingicat]

Thankfully the Holocaust survivor I learned this from was nursed back to health with soup after initial gorging.

[hilarita]

I read something recently about this - there was a research program in America on how to re-feed starving people, I think because of some issues they'd encountered early on with this. The effects of starvation on some of the participants were pretty horrific (they were volunteers), but they did IIRC come up with some improved methodologies for what to do with starving people.

[vvalkyri]

Specifically fortified peanut butter at least for children

[conuly]

Though, iirc, you have to build up to the fortified peanut butter. You can't give it to starving people right off the bat.

[gingicat]

I learned that from a Hebrew school teacher who had escaped from a concentration camp with a friend and found her way to the home of a kind stranger in Switzerland.

[neotoma]

I know about this because of the Minnesota Starvation Experiment which was conducted in the USA during WW2 specifically to develop safe re-feeding strategies.

[moon_custafer]

Same here.

[thewayne]

Ditto. A very grim program, but it saved a lot of lives.

[silveradept]

I'll file that away in my brain in case it ever becomes relevant to a story. Thank you.

[the_siobhan]

True story, when I had adenomyosis, I would frequently go for a full week without eating. When I was having an attack that meant days of being too out of it with pain to eat, followed by several days of recovering from the effects of the opiates that were the only thing that could touch it.

Then I would try to eat something and my bodywould have no idea what to do with it. It would sit in my stomach like a brick, and my stomach would end up being bloated and tight and painful for days.

A friend made a recommendation that worked like a charm, he said make lemonade as strong as I could stand it, put as much maple syrup or honey in it as I could, and just sip on that all day. Worked like a charm, by the end of the day I would actually be hungry and my stomach would have remembered how digestion works.

[zhelana]

Yeah, I first heard of that with a professor talking about how many holocaust victims actually died of a ruptured stomach when allied soldiers liberated the camps and so many soldiers just handed over whole days' worth of food to these people, trying to do the right thing.

So that's horrifying.

[conuly]

I mean, who wouldn't hand over as much food as they could to those people?

Well, I wouldn't, obviously, because I know better, but if I didn't then of course I would.

[zhelana]

Of course you would, because you are not a monster. And yet!

[chez_jae]

I also hate when someone comes out of a coma and is immediately up and walking and ready to hit the road running. Guh.

[conuly]

Oh god, yeah. Even if the coma is magically induced and you can handwave away cognitive impairment, there's still going to be some muscle atrophy. (Looking at you, Locke and Key.)