The aim of this review is to show how hunger, satiety and appetite can be seen as a central research subject for the social sciences, both as the locus where food consumption is bodily regulated and as the nexus where biology, social praxis and cultural meanings meet and are negotiated by the individual. The number of people developing overweight and obesity is increasing, as is the prevalence of eating disorders and weight preoccupation. These tendencies can be considered as expressions of a polarization of eating habits in modern societies, where lack of control or exaggerated control over eating are still more common phenomena. At the same time the tendencies may be seen as the result of a more general ambivalence in relation to food, which influences the experiences of hunger, satiety and appetite and their regulating effect on food consumption.