Eating Behaviour

Question 1

What is the evolutionary explanation for preference for sweetness?

Answer 1

Indicates high-energy food so newborns like sugar in ripe fruit as fructose is a ‘fast acting’ sugar

Question 2

Explain preference for salt

Answer 2

Appears at four months but still innate, also indicates high-energy and salt is essential for cell functions in animals

Question 3

Explain preference for fat

Answer 3

Fat is high in calories, advantage as most efficient way to get energy

Question 4

Explain neophobia

Answer 4

o Fear of new, innate disposition
o Helpful for avoiding foods that are harmful
o It diminishes when we learn that specific foods won’t poison us or cause us to become ill and gives way for a different evolutionary mechanism that encourages consumption of a varied diet

Question 5

Explain taste aversion

Answer 5

Biological preparedness, avoid harmful foods increases survival chances
Study on newborns and bitter foods, negative response in response to bitter taste, this was before any food preference had taken place suggesting an innate mechanism at work

Question 6

Explain operant conditioning in role of learning food preferences

Answer 6

Parents reinforce food preferences, rewarding children for what they eat, classical conditioning more powerful

Question 7

Role of classical conditioning in role of learning food preferences

Answer 7

Preferences develop because of association with taste we already like, association eventually leads to to liking of the new food on its own

Question 8

Social influences in role of learning food preferences

Answer 8

o Family, peers and media give child reinforcement
o Role models, modelling, see the positive response to eating a certain food and so imitate the role model
o Television advertising, marketed with ‘fun’ related themes and promoted by characters young and old children identify with

Question 9

Cultural influences in role of learning food preferences

Answer 9

o Most reliable predictor of food preferences
o Cultural norms
o Meat-eating, culturally determined
o Vicarious reinforcement, associate many of the foods we eat and enjoy as adults with feelings of security and happiness of growing up

Question 10

Outline family systems theory

Answer 10

1.Enmeshment, members of anorexic family are overly involved
2. Overprotectiveness, family members constantly involved in protecting each other from external threats
3.Rigidity, interactions within family are inflexible, deny the need for change and work to maintain things as they are
4. Conflict avoidance, avoid conflict and take whatever steps necessary to prevent it or to suppress it
o Autonomy and control, families exhibiting these features prevent members exhibiting autonomy and control, it is the mother in particular that is domineering and does’t accept daughters need for independence

Question 11

Outline social learning theory for an

Answer 11

o Modelling, observation of model who provides a template for behaviour that the observer can imitate and modify social norms by establishing what is usual behaviour in a situation
o Vicarious reinforcement, imitate model when they see them being praised for loosing weight, family are major source of vicarious reinforcement
o Role of media, western idea that the thinner the better, young women identify with female celebrities and behave like them
o Barbie doll, Emme doll and control images, girls who saw the barbie images were significantly more dissatisfied with their body shape compared to Emme or control group

Question 12

Outline cognitive theory for an

Answer 12

o Cognitive distortion – constant thoughts of food and misinterpreted emotional states as ‘feeling fat’, study on diagnose an patients and a control group to estimate their current body size and indicate their ideal size, found that the ideal shape for an was significantly thinner and that they overestimated their size
o Irrational beliefs –perfectionism in goals, all or nothing thinking, and catastrophising (eating a biscuit is the end of the world)
o Cognitive inflexibility – problems with set-shifting, find it hard to to switch fluently from one task to another requiring a different set of cognitive skills, once an individual gets started on a weight loss purpose they rigidly persist with it and find it hard to switch to an adaptive way of thinking about body weight

Question 13

Outline restraint theory

Answer 13

o Restrained eaters overeat
o Cognitive control, always thinking about weight and not eating and therefore so focused on food that it becomes harder to eat less
o Paradoxical outcome, more preoccupied with food means that eating behaviour is no longer under physiological control and leads to disinhibition of eating behaviour

Question 14

Outline disinhibition

Answer 14

o Cycle of restraint and disinhibition
o Restraint eaters are vulnerable to internal and external food-related cues these are called disinhibits
o Lead to loss of control and binging, continue to eat and binge due to thinking that there’s no point in stopping as their restraint eating has already been ruined

Question 15

Outline the boundary model

Answer 15

o Food intake exists on a continuum from hungry to satiated
o Restrained eaters are less sensitive to satiety and so need more food to feel full
o Restrained eaters have a self imposed diet boundary which is much lower than their satiety boundary

Question 16

What is the spiral model?

Answer 16

o Restricted eating begins in adolescence
o First time dieting, loose some weight however it gets put back on
o This leads to a more restrictive diet and then makes them vulnerable to disinhibited eating
o Metabolic processes in the body change, ghrelin increases and leptin decreases after significant weight loss, results in further failure and increase in depression over time
o Individual trapped in downward spiral in which weight loss is less and less likely

Question 17

What is the ironic processes theory?

Answer 17

o Experiment of asking people to not think about a white bear and it was almost guaranteed that they would
o So trying to suppress a thought makes the thought more likely
o Therefore ‘forbidden’ foods are more likely to be thought about and leads to disinhibited eating
o All energy spent trying not to think about food

Question 18

Restrain. disinhibition and the boundary model in success and failure of dieting

Answer 18

Restrained eating `–conscious efforts to restrain eating leads to thinking more about food and more susceptible to cognitive biases and distortions
Disinhibition – more vulnerable to internal and external food related cues leading to disinhibited eating
Boundary model – limit on how much food they eat and when they pass this limit they will continue to eat until they are full on the basis that they have already passed their limit and ‘might as well’