She didn't think she needed it, she thought that it was cruel.
But when she hit the playground, she was much too tired to play,
Without the most important meal of the day.
Being hungry is no fun. You're salivating all the time (perhaps excessively), you can't concentrate, and you may also become "hangry" and start lashing out at people and things. And if you're a fictional character, it's worse, because you might become tired or even fall asleep.note
This is the trope for when a character is hungry, and it makes them lethargic. While it is true that malnutrition can cause lethargy, as can being hungry when you have a problem such as hypoglycemia (and going without food for a few days can have the same effect because it'd lower your blood sugar), in these cases the character has no medical problems, it hasn't been long enough to lower the blood sugar significantly, and it obviously isn't malnutrition, yet they become weak or sleepy anyway.
A common usage of this trope is in stories, particularly those aimed at children, that aim to teach a lesson about not skipping a meal. After all, they want the kiddies to pay attention and no kid wants to be tired. Also, concepts such as nutrition and being able to pay attention may be hard for kids to understand, but all kids know what it means to be tired. In extreme cases, this may be an example of Scare 'Em Straight.
Another common place it's seen is in video games, where being hungry might make your character seem groggy and/or move more slowly. This, which is similar to the Hyperactive Metabolism, is often put in to make a game more challenging, especially if the player character doesn't actually need sleep.
In works other than kids' stories and video games, expect any character who Forgets to Eat to appear groggy or even fall asleep at their desk (see Asleep in Class if this happens at school). This usually prompts another character to ask, "How long has it been since your last meal?", "Did you eat breakfast?" or similar.
As a side note, the "falling asleep" part is a bit inaccurate, since sometimes people can even have trouble falling asleep when they're hungry.Why?
Contrast Food Coma, where eating too much makes you lethargic. If seen in food ads, the food will often not only get rid of the fatigue but give Cereal-Induced Superpowers. Can lead to Worf Had the Flu if they were defeated by someone who wouldn't have been able to otherwise. If portrayed as a moral, it might lead to Can't Get Away with Nuthin' and, if played unrealistically, it's a Space Whale Aesop. Sometimes, if played as an Aesop, never eating breakfast (it's always breakfast, due to the piece of "conventional wisdom" that cites it as most important) could be the reason behind a Sleepyhead or a weakling. Can involve Tempting Fate if they previously think they didn't need to eat right then. Note that this does not include Fainting, as that's different from normal falling asleep. In video games, it could cause sleepy-looking Idle Animations, which could be part of an Expressive Health Bar. Due to the tropes Appetite Equals Health and Dangerous Drowsiness, if this trope is subverted, it's often a very bad sign.
Examples
- In early arcs of Dragon Ball, Goku's Hyperactive Metabolism is also his Kryptonite Factor: after fighting for a little while, he will start to get hungry, becoming slower and weaker and sometimes even falling asleep. This results in several defeats on his part before his training regimen eventually improves his stamina.
- In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind, during Narancia's backstory, he's found by Fugo rummaging through the garbage full of exhaustion after having no proper meal for days. Fugo immediately brings him to a restaurant and gives him Italian-class cuisine.
- In My Roommate is a Cat, Subaru pushes himself at manic levels to finish writing his latest novel, going for over 24 hours without eating or sleeping so that he can finish it. This results in him falling unconscious in his hallway, at which point Haru the cat panics and pushes her bowl of kibble over to him. He reflexively eats it, then falls asleep and is horrified that he ate cat food once he wakes up. This starts him on the road to taking better care of himself.
- One of the opening scenes in Pokémon: The First Movie features Ash resting his head on a table arguing with Misty about needing food. Partially subverted by the fact Ash had actually eaten breakfast, and then ultimately averted when a trainer approaches and challenges Ash, causing Ash to jump to his feet in excitement. Subsequently lampshaded by both Misty and Brock (who has been cooking the entire time).
- In Madagascar, Alex slowly starts to lose his energy after he hasn't eaten steak for a couple days. As a result, his wild instincts kick in and it starts bringing out his predatory nature.
- In Turning Red, Abby claims that she's starting to blackout due to not having lunch yet.
- Discussed in Stupid Carrots. Betty claims she's too hungry to move, but she's just being dramatic.
- In a licensed game of Boogie Beebies, the energy meter is replenished with food. The more conventionally healthy the food, the more energy it gives you.
- The Chica Show: In "Farmer Chica," Chica learns about healthy eating on the farm after eating chips.
- The Good Night Show: In "Healthy Sproutlets," Star learns not to skip meals after skipping dinner.
- Hi-5: One sketch is about a superhero named "Super-Duper" who's oddly lethargic. They eventually find out that it's because he doesn't eat breakfast.
- In an episode of Malcolm in the Middle, Francis' classmates join him on a hunger strike to get back their TV; by a certain point, everybody is too tired to stand up (and they also start hallucinating).
- Shows up heaps of times in Sesame Street, mostly centred around the idea of breakfast, which they cite as the most important meal:
- In the song "The Breakfast Club" (no relation to the movie), they sing, "Join the Breakfast Club, the Breakfast Club. Don't let your energy go glub, glub, glub" (as in, like a car running out of gas).
- In the song "The Most Important Meal of the Day" (or as it's sometimes known, "The Breakfast Song"), the singing chef recounts a story of a girl named Susie who skipped breakfast due to thinking it was unnecessary and "cruel", but then became too tired to play on the playground. She's seen yawning and leaning against a tree.
- In one Super Grover skit, skipping breakfast makes Grover too weak to lift a briefcase. This is also an example of Brought Down to Normal since Super-Strength is one of his powers.
- Downplayed for the breakfast song Ernie sings. He says that breakfast "wakes [him] up", but it's unclear whether he needed waking up because he was hungry or because he's Not a Morning Person.
- In one skit, this is discussed when guest star Buzz Aldrin sees Telly saying, "I'm running low on energy" while playing astronaut. He thinks he means he's feeling sluggish and says, "Well, eat some food." Telly was actually talking in the context of his game, but it starts a conversation on food giving one energy.
- In one skit, a girl named Carolyn gets tired on the playground and the narrator thinks it's because the cake she ate didn't satiate her enough.
- In the kids' song "To Be Strong"
, an anthropomorphic duckling doesn't eat his lunch, which leaves him weak and a slow runner.
- In the kids' educational play Iron Brian, this is exaggerated. Brian claims that without breakfast, your "brain and your body will eventually begin to slow down", and as he says it, he slows down his speech and freezes. (He did have breakfast, but he was demonstrating what a lack of breakfast could do).
- ANNO: Mutationem: After exiting Freeway 42, Ann finds a little girl called Sigrid collapsed outside after passing out from hunger. Ann quickly takes her somewhere to recover, though she still makes a Growling Gut sound after waking up.
- In Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, Monokuma traps everyone in a building without any food given until one of them commits murder. Soon, some of them start hallucinating, and Hajime losing his energy causes him to move very slowly while walking around.
- Ice Age 2: The Meltdown: Discussed when Cholly says that sometimes, he gets so hungry that he can hardly move. It later happens for real when Cholly is found sitting under an apple tree, too famished to climb it. Scrat ends up having to get him a few apples.
- In Minecraft, if your hunger bar is too low, you can't sprint.
- Throughout the Monster Hunter series, your stamina bar shortens over time. If it gets really short, your character can barely run without needing to stop and since attacking and dodging monsters eats at your stamina too, having it too low is a serious problem. Eating a well-done steak boosts it back up significantly.
- Moshi Monsters: When a Moshi Monster's health bar (which was essentially its hunger bar) was low, the monster would act droopy and listless. Averted for the Moshlings (the Moshi Monsters' pets), though, who would just have speech bubbles saying, "Hungry", "Pizza", etc, and the monsters at the Ice Scream Parlour, who would get angry instead.
- Persona 5: The Hunger debuff severely weakens the afflicted character's attack power. Their voice lines while affected are also weary, and usually complaining about a lack of food.
- In Pokémon Mystery Dungeon, the hunger seed gives the "Hungry Pal" status, preventing them from moving. It has a different effect on the current leader, though.
- Rogue has characters randomly faint from lack of food, which basically has them skip a few turns, and is about one step before finally starving. This method is inherited in many other roguelikes.
- Skull Girls: Umbrella's Hungern and his starved state is weaker in some ways than other forms, but he can eat more before getting full in this state. Inverted in his ravenous state where a lot of moves actually get buffed.
- Zanki Zero: Stamina is filled by gathering consumables, if the meter isn't filled regularly, the party members will die from starvation.
- In Neopets, this is downplayed. Neopets don't seem particularly lethargic when hungry, but they aren't up to fighting in the Battledome (a play arena).
- Discussed in an episode of Red vs. Blue; when Grif and Church are locked together in a prison cell, Grif wishes that he had some bedsheets. When Church says that there's no point in making a Bedsheet Ladder in a subterranean cell, Grif says the sheets aren't for escape; if he's going to starve to death, he wants to die in his sleep.
- The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius: Subverted in "I Dream of Jimmy". When Carl keeps falling asleep during Jimmy's experiments, Jimmy thinks Carl's lethargic because he's hungry. It turns out he's just sleep-deprived.
- Discussed in Arthur, the episode "D.W. Gets Lost", when Arthur is eating cake despite not being allowed any. He claims that he was so hungry that he was too weak to chew and needed something soft.
- Discussed in a Little Bear episode titled "Mitzi's Little Monster", where Little Bear knocks over his teddy bear Fisherman Bear during a pretend tea party. Emily asks him why, and Little Bear responds, "He's weak because he didn't have any cake".
- In Milly, Molly, the episode "Magic Muffins" has Humphrey falling Asleep in Class every morning due to skipping breakfast. They feed him muffins, and he stops falling asleep. Skipping breakfast also gave him Writer's Block, and Miss Blythe cites breakfast as a cure for writers' block, but that's another story.
- Nature Cat: In "Nature Plant", Nature Cat and his friends become hungry after playing a game, so the others eat green beans as a snack. However, Nature Cat decides to keep playing instead. He becomes tired as a result and has a dream where he's turned into the titular plant. After learning a lesson on why plants need food, Nature Cat starts eating green beans and becomes active again.
- R.O.B. the Robot: Near the end of "Food-O-Matic", Ema lies down on the ground, saying that she's so hungry that she can barely move. She gets her energy back once she eats some of "Rob Surprise".
- South Park: In the episode "Fun With Veal", the four attempt to prevent baby calves from being slaughtered as food by keeping themselves and the calves locked up in Stan's room. Later, they start to become fatigued after being unable to get any means of food until Cartman's mother sneaks some food in for them. Stan, however, refuses to eat after learning it came from calves, and once the baby calves have been declared free, Stan has immediately passed out from starvation.
- SpongeBob SquarePants:
- In one episode, the eponymous sponge collapses because his "food meter" is empty. Mr. Krabs remedies this with a Krabby Patty (the kind of burgers he makes in his restaurant).
- In "I was a Teenage Gary", this is subverted. Squidward observes that his neighbour's snail Gary is sluggish and assumes it's because he's hungry, but then he doesn't eat. The vet prescribes something called "snail plasma", but that ends up being injected into SpongeBob and Squidward and turning them into half-snail creatures. As it turned out, all Gary needed was water.
- Subverted in the ToddWorld episode "Water U Thinking?", where Banana the fish is frowning and sitting on her couch, and Sophie thinks she's hungry, but really she's sick from the garbage that was in her friend Finnegan's pond.
