Some questions for you to answer:

1. How many times a day do you normally eat ?

2. Why?3. At what time do you normally eat?4. Why?5. List three food products you really hate:6. Why?7. List three food products you really love:8. Why?

More q’s…9. Are you happy with the way

your body looks?10. Why?11. Does food or eating influence

how you look or feel about your body?

12. Why?12a. Final Q: What influences how much you

eat?

Prader-Willi syndrome

Attitudes to Food.• LO:To understand that eating behaviour such as• food preference • portion size3• Eating motivation• Body dissatisfactionCan be moderated by parental attitudes, mood

and cultural influences.

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Friday, April 21, 2023

Prader-Willi Syndrome• Is associated with an

insatiable appetite, resulting in morbid obesity. An abnormality of Chromo’ 15 disrupts the normal functioning of the hypothalamus, which amongst other things controls appetite (hunger> full-up/not full-up)

Miranda's "La monstrua desnuda" (The Nude Monster) 1680

So is our eating behaviour truly under our control? Is it genetic? Is it influenced by parents/ media? What psychological factors effect when and what we eat?

Factors that might influence your eating behaviour (food choice)...

• Hunger• Attitudes/Beliefs/Knowledge• Social Context/Economics• Parents/Peers• Mood

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What is the dynamic behind each of these influences?Biological – Cognitive –

Behavioural (Learning Theory)

Social Learning (AO1)• Bandura and SLT (you should already know this!)• Three sources to ‘model’ eating from:

1. Parents2. Peers3. Media

Task:

Briefly outline Bandura’s SLT.

How could you apply this theory to eating behaviour.

Give examples.

Task:

Briefly outline Bandura’s SLT.

How could you apply this theory to eating behaviour.

Give examples.

PARENTAL INFLUENCES

Eating Behaviour 1 7

Snack food intake, eating motivation and body dissatisfaction have all been associated to parents attitudes and behaviours (Brown and Ogden, 2004)

A daughters eating can be predicted based on her mothers diet restraint and her concerns of her daughter being overweight (Birch and Fisher, 2000)

Who does the shopping in your household?If you had a choice would you eat the same as your parents? Would you eat healthier? More or Less?

PEER INFLUENCES

Eating Behaviour 1 8

PEER INFLUENCESPositive correlations found between peer influence and disordered eating amoungst 10-12yr olds. (Meyer and Gast, 2008)

MEDIA INFLUENCES

Media do have a massive impact on what people eat and the attitudes we have to certain foods.However individual circumstances such as age, income and family situation also has a major influence. Thus we know what we should be eating, but perhaps go for cheaper unhealthier options.

Eating Behaviour 1 9

What is reductionist about using only the SLT approach to explain eating behaviours and food preference?

Social Learning (AO2)

Evaluate Social Learning :• Research which supports eg. Meyer & Gast (2008)

‘correlation between parental influence and disordered eating’ and Birch & Fisher (2000) ‘mother’s diet predicts daughter’s’

• However comment on ‘gender bias’* and over reliance by SLT on ‘fashion’ to the exclusion of other factors eg. Evolution & Adaption

• Plus general evaluation of SLT (+/-):theory based on childhood aggression etc

*Next slide

CULTURAL INFLUENCES

Ethnicity: White women more likely to have greater levels of body dissatisfaction then black or Asian.The acculturation effect was found studying 14000, women in Australia, for all ethnic groups the longer the amount of time spent in the country increased body dissatisfaction

However, not all research agrees with this, as Mumfed (1991) found that bulimia was more prevelant amongst Asian girls, and Strigel –Moore found a drive for thinness amongst black girls more then white.

What about eating preference? Blue box Rozin (1999)

Eating Behaviour 1 11

SOCIAL CLASS

Income is positively correlated with healthy eating (2003 Scottish health survey)However the link between social class and body dissatisfaction and disordered eating is far more tenuous.Dornbusch (1984) found with a large sample of 7000 American adolescents the higher the class, the greater the desire to be thin and engage in dieting behaviour.

However Storey (1995) found that higher class individuals were more satisfied with their weight and engaged in less weight control behaviours.

Eating Behaviour 1 12

MOOD

Low mood and comfort eatingSummarise Garg yellow box (2007) study.

Both clinical (bulimic) and sub clinical (below threshold) populations exhibit high levels of anxiety prior to binge eating.

Wegner (2002) had students record their mood and eating behaviours in a diary over two weeks. Prior to a binge session students reported levels of low mood, compared to non-binge days. However the binge did not lift the mood of the individuals. Then why do it?In fact studies report a further drop in mood following from the bingeWhat about our friend chocolate? Read Parker study (2006)

Eating Behaviour 1 13

Social Learning (AO2)Evaluate Social Learning (p79):• Research which supports eg. Meyer & Gast (2008)

‘correlation between parental influence and disordered eating’ and Birch & Fisher (2000) ‘mother’s diet predicts daughter’s’

• However comment on ‘gender bias’* and over reliance by SLT on ‘fashion’ to the exclusion of other factors eg. Evolution & Adaption

• Plus general evaluation of SLT (+/-):theory based on childhood aggression etc

*Next slide

Gender Bias: Is it female only?

• Q) Which discrete group of males has the same incidence of ED’s as females?

• Gender difference on value of body image:

Problems of Generalisability

• What is the difference between a clinical and a subclinical population?

Eating Behaviour 1 16

Next…• Explanations for the

success and failure of dieting

Why and what…. Dieting• The main cause is perceived body image

dissatisfaction (dismorphia)• Majority of dieters are women, as many as

87% of all women have dieted as some time in their lives (Furnham and Greaves, 1994)

• 3 basic forms:– Restricting the total amount of food eaten– Refraining from eating certain types of food– Avoiding eating for long periods of time

Dieting18

Dieting: support and encouragement• Eating is often part of social interaction. So informing friends

and family of weight loss goals should help reduce the temptations of food and encourage positive reinforcement (and punishment) from others

• Lots of dieters also join a weight loss group or diet with a friend or partner to maintain motivation

• But this approach doesn’t work for everyone – some people find constant monitoring by others stressful and use secretive binge eating as a defence mechanism

Dieting19

Physiological Changes Due to Dieting• Your body has evolved to cope with chronic food shortages

by lowering your metabolic rate and protecting fat stores in times of starvation; extreme dieting triggers this response

• If you then return to normal eating you end up with more excess calories than before which are then converted to fat; to overcome the feeling of deprivation during the diet people often also overeat afterwards, which gives an even bigger weight gain

• You may than start another, ever more restrictive diet to undo the weight gain, but this will just reduce the metabolic rate further and so the pattern of ‘yo-yo’ dieting continues

Dieting20

Restraint Theory: Ogden (2007)• Argues that restrained eating can lead to

both under and overeating post-diet

• The boundary model (post-diet increased range)

Dieting21

Restraint Theory – a classic experiment

• Pre-load (snack-up before)/taste (eat after) test paradigm

• Participants are given (the ‘pre-load’) either high-calorie snacks or a low-calorie snacks

• After eating, they are told they are going to take part in a taste preference test

• The key factor – how much of the taste test food they actually eat (loads of food placed in front of them and the amount is measured)

Dieting22

Results... • The results suggest

that although dieters may eat less at some times, restrained eating is also associated with eating more at other times and this factor may explain why dieters are often unsuccessful (Odgen, 2003)

Dieting23

Expand notes:AO1/AO2 (pp80-81) Explain & Commentary

AO3 Evaluation of research methods (p81)

Restraint Theory Freewill or Determinism

The Role of Denial Does dieting make you dumb?

Detail: Key to Success Cultural differences and Limitations of anecdotal evidence

Assignment 1

1. Discuss/evaluate attitudes to eating / food and explanations for the success or failure of dieting (25 marks)

Instructions: The essay style answer should have an Introduction

(introduce/define). Then AO1 (9 marks) and AO2/3 (16 marks) as sub-headed sections followed by a short conclusion (summary). You WILL need to focus on AO2/3 (check ‘commentary’ and chapter summary pp 94-95 textbook).

(500/600 words).