Can anyone tell me for sure that dropping a villager on food or the well to make them eat and drink actually improves their health when you do it or do they just get better on their own when they are healed over time.

It does improve their health... but the health bar doesn't move in 1-point-of-food increments... the logfile shows the increase, but the health bar moves in I think 5 point-increments. Seems every two bites is a point, so if you do 8 feedings one after the other, you should see an increase in health on the bar... and that wouldn't happen that quickly normally (less feedings depending on how many health points they're at at the time.

mmm thanks i need to start looking at the log file so i can grasp better some of VV inner workings for my guide. Thanks.

i dont know im not seeing any correlation with food and healing. It says she feels better, but there is no visible increase in her health bar, and the log files says nothing about her eating and feeling better. She is simply getting better 1 point every 3 minutes or so. I fed her 6 times in one minute and she still only healed 1 point for that 3 minute section. ...

Joseph, I have never done any "research" on this matter, but was always with the understanding that forcing the villagers to eat had no effect on health. Rather it is the amount of food in the bin that causes them to receive starvation deductions or increase in health.

This sounds more feasable and closer to what im seeing from the log file. Thanks. So basically they just wont heal if there is no food but as long as there is food they will always heal over time. I will add this to my guide.

bajantara is correct - forcing the villagers to eat improves their health, but you usually won't see it until you've done it at least 8 times.

well dang. Ok i will correct this.

What I haven't been able to figure out is if making them drink also helps... I just do it on a routine of eat 4 times, drink once, eat 4 times - but that's only because I'd hate to be eating all that dry food with nothing to wash it down... lol

I've sometimes had to put a villager 5-8 times at the food bin before I've seen the "your villager feels better after eating" line. But even when I do see that, I might not notice a change in the healing status. But after several iterations of the line, I may see a change, but that could be a coincidance with the healing that comes over time.

I have noticed that nursing mothers and kids won't eat at the food bin even when dragged there, so they are totally dependant on the "natural healing" if they are already in the weakened stage.