Pop vs. Pro: The science behind the “munchies”

Two people tell a story about the same event to two different people. One is telling their friend this story, and another is telling the story to an interviewer. Although they are talking about the same event, each person is going to have their own spin on the story, and depending on who they are talking about, details might be explained differently or even left out. When telling my friend about my college experience I most likely am going to be a lot more explicit with my word choice, use some slang or inside jokes, and tell stories that I think my friend would think are interesting or funny. When telling an interviewer about my college experience I might focus more on what I learned, who I met, and how I have changed and leave out details about sex, drugs, and rock and roll. I am still talking about one topic, my college experience, and yet these two stories are going to be much different. The same goes for scientific topics. Depending on who the author is, who the audience is, and what the context is, the story is going to be portrayed differently.

Nature is an international weekly journal of science and one of the most notable and distinguished journals. According to their website mission statement, one of the goals of the journal is “to rapidly disseminate results of science to the public throughout the world in a fashion that conveys their significance for knowledge, culture and daily life”. The website is categorized into Chemistry, Life Sciences, Clinical Practice, Earth & Environment and Physical Sciences. Since all of these articles are peer reviewed, many of the readers of this journal are other scientists, doctors and professors who may even be published themselves. Like in my experience, students read these articles too, but mainly from the science and tech fields of study, and many of my science classes have assigned case studies that come from this journal because of its reliability in the science world.

The article uses an exorbitant amount of acronyms although mentioned briefly at the beginning, became confusing when every other word was an acronym. The article also requires the reader to be highly involved as it references many figures and tables and has about nine pages of extended data tables and graphs. If the reader is unfamiliar with reading these types of graphs then they would have a hard time understanding much of the article. I thought that the article was very distracting because the figure captions were extremely long, although necessary to include the appropriate data. The article was full of scientific jargon and probably unreadable for most lay people. Even the title, including the word “cannabinoid-induced feeling” probably would not turn a light on in the most pot smoking familiar person until the last paragraph of the discussion mentions that “the phenomenon of cannabis-triggered feeding in a state of satiety is a hallmark of marijuana use in humans” (Koch 4).

In contrast, The Guardian is a British national daily newspaper that now also has US and Australia editions. It is one of the top read newspapers in the world. The audience of this newspaper is people of all ages and levels of education. A majority of the people reading this article were probably intrigued by the title of this article since a “recreational activity” such as smoking pot was in a research science article.

The article uses the slang word “munchies’ to describe the increased appetite while under the influence of marijuana. The article is much more readable, clear, and relatable, using terms known by younger populations. This article only uses acronyms three times and the scientific word is in parenthesis directly after the acronym.  This article “dumbs down” the science behind the mechanism in the brain that is responsible for appetite and cravings. The article still falls under the science section and uses terms such as “neurons” and “organelles” which are basic science vocabulary that is learned in middle school. The article also uses specific imagery such as a “desire for a packet of Doritos or a bowl of Coco Pops” to relate to the audience’s behaviors (Devlin).

Although smoking marijuana is a relatively well-known practice, most people do not know the specific science behind the physical changes it causes. They might be able to describe behaviors and thoughts that arise as a result of smoking or ingesting marijuana, but probably rely more on basic news articles like The Guardian’s rather than scientific research articles from journals such as Nature. I would also relate the difference in the writing and readability of these two different types of articles to the full ingredient list on the back of a package versus the ingredients promoted on the front. On the front are familiar words and ingredients such as “high fiber” and “protein”, while the back might contain unpronounceable sources for those nutrients, but each is technically describing the same thing, the front simply chooses more eye catching words and phrases, than the back, which is more comprehensive.

Works Cited

Devlin, Hannah. "Reefer research: cannabis 'munchies' explained by new study ." The Guardian

[New York, NY]. Guardian News and Media Limited, 18 Feb. 2015. Web. 24 Feb. 2015.

Koch, Marco, et al. "Hypothalamic POMC neurons promote cannabinoid-induced feeding."

Nature (2015): Web. 25 Feb. 2015.