Eating Behaviour

Question 1

Mennella

Answer 1

children who preferred sweet solutions over salty ones were tall for their age
makes sense for evolution in EEA as children who sought out more calories were likely to grow and more likely to survive

Question 2

Garcia et al

Answer 2

studied taste aversion 1st
rats who had been made ill through radiation shortly after eating saccharin developed an aversion to it and very quickly associated illness with the saccharin

Question 3

Brown and Ogden

Answer 3

reported consistent correlations between parents and their children in terms of snack food intake, eating motivations and body dissatisfaction

Question 4

Birch

Answer 4

showed how exposure to another child could change food preferences
four consecutive lunchtimes, children were seated next to other children who preferred a different vegetable to the one they preferred
at end of 4 days these children showed a change in their vegetables preference that was still there after a follow-up several weeks later

Question 5

Macltyre et al

Answer 5

the media have a major impact on what people eat and their attitude to food
many eating behaviours are limited by personal circumstances - age income, family

Question 6

Maguire at el

Answer 6

in the UK, the number of takeaway restaurants has risen by 45% in the last 18 years

Question 7

Stanley et al

Answer 7

repeated injections of NPY into rats caused obesity in just a few days

Question 8

STROBER ET AL

Answer 8

research shows eating disorders (AN) run in families

1st degree relative of individuals with AN have 10x greater lifetimes risk of having AN (STROBER ET AL)

Question 9

Wade et al (twins AN)

Answer 9

interviewed over 2000 female MZ and DZ twins evaluating using DSM criteria for AN
claimed heritability rate of AN = 58%

Question 10

Klump et al (Adoption studies)

Answer 10

studied 123 adopted siblings pars and 56 biological sibling pairs
due to relatively low prevalence of AN disordered symptoms were assessed instead
there heritability estimates range from 59% - 82% for the different aspects of disordered eating with non-shared environmental factors

Question 11

Serotonin (BAILER ET AL)

Answer 11

measured serotonin activity in women recovering from either restricting-type anorexia or binge-eating/purging types
they were compared with healthy controls
significantly higher serotonin activity in the women recovering form the binge-eating/purging type compared to the other two groups
highest levels of serotonin activity in women who showed most anxiety suggesting that persistent disruption of serotonin levels may lead to increased anxiety

Question 12

Dopamine (Kaye et al)

Answer 12

used PET scan to compare dopamine activity in the brains of 10 women recovering from AN and 12 healthy women
In AN = overactivity of dopamine receptors in a part of the brain known as the basal ganglia

Question 13

Limbic System dysfunction (Lipsman at al)

Answer 13

neural roots of AN appear to be related to a dysfunction in the limbic system in the brain specifically the subcallosal cingulate and the insular cortex
dysfunction in these areas (normal function =emotion regulation) can lead to deficits in emotional processing
which lead to the pathological thought and behaviours which are typical of AN

Question 14

Minuchin et al

the ‘psychosomatic’ family

Answer 14

necessity for development of AN = a dysfunctional family along with a physiological vulnerability in the child
the aim of treatment is to fix the family
includes: Enmeshment, autonomy and control also rigidity and lack of conflict resolution

Question 15

Barber and Buehler (enmeshment)

Answer 15

enmeshment stifles the development of child’s ability to deal with common social stressors and makes development of AN much more likely

Question 16

Minuchin et al

The child’s involvement in the psychosomatic family

Answer 16

identified three characteristic patterns of conflict-related behaviours which involve the child

1) Triangulation
2) Parent-child coalition
3) Detouring

Question 17

Bandura

Social learning theory and AN

Answer 17

people learn by observing the behaviours of others as well as observing the outcome of that behaviour
will produce similar outcomes if the perceived behaviour gains positive outcomes

Question 18

Hill et al (AN)

Answer 18

found similarities between mothers’ and daughters/ restraint and dieting behaviours among children as young as 10

Question 19

Peer influences (eisenberg et al)

Answer 19

us study which found that dieting amongst friends was significantly related to unhealthy weight control behaviours eg. use of pills or purging

Question 20

Peer influences Jones and Crawford)

Answer 20

overweight girls and underweight boys were most likely to be teased by their peers
shows that through teasing peers enforce gender-based ideals

Question 21

Peer influences (Gravener et al)

Answer 21

examined association between peer dieting and drive for thinness in over 2000 men and women of 3 age categories
found significant associations between perceived peer dieting and a drive for thinness in both men and women
women = strongest in late adolescence and for same-sex peers
men = association meant nothing

Question 22

Button et al (Media influence)

Answer 22

girls with low self esteem at 11-12 were a significantly great risk of developing an eating disorder at 15-17

Question 23

A cognitive behavioural model of AN (Garner and Bemis)

Answer 23

Anorexia patients have characteristics in common
typically, high-achieving perfectionists, introverted and often full of self-doubt
coupled with exposure to cultural ideals of thinness - leads to focus on weight and shape
as a result - AN individuals develop irrational belief that losing weight will reduce distress
losing weight becomes self reinforcing due to sense of achievement
once importance of being thin = established focus on eating develops
develops into fear of food and weight gain which leads to avoidance of food

Question 24

Fairburn et al (the transdiagnostic model)

Answer 24

AN in maintained by 3 characteristics

1) an enhanced sense of self-control leads to increased self esteem
2) the physiological and psychological changes they experiences as a result of their starvation are perceived as being in control which leads to them being intensified
3) due to focus on weight and appearance - individual increased self monitoring of weight any weight gain or loss perceived as too slow leads to increased efforts to restrict

Question 25

Maes at al (meta analysis)
Twin studies
Biological explanations for Obesity

Answer 25

average heritability = 40% to 75%
- 7000 individuals found heritability estimate for BMI = 74% in MZ twins and 32% in DZ
even when raised apart MZ twins are more alike in BMI than DZ twins who are raised together

Question 26

Herman and Mack - Restraint Theory

Psychological explanations for obesity

Answer 26

the conscious restriction of food intake to prevent weight gain or promote weight loss
proposes that attempting to restrict actually promotes overeating

Question 27

Westenhoefer et al

Answer 27

women who scored higher on flexible restraint reduced their subsequent ice cream intake following a preload of milkshake, whereas those who scored higher on rigid restraint did not reduce their ice cream intake following the reload

Question 28

Herman and Polivy - The boundary model

Answer 28

according to model - food intake =regulated along a continuum - hunger at one end satiety at the other
in between two ‘zone of biological indifference’
- where the individual is neither full nor hungry
- food intake based on cultural and social factors
retrained eaters have a larger zone - they have a lower threshold for hunger and higher for satiation
also ‘what the hell’ approach because dietary boundary already gone passed they continue eating

Question 29

Bond et al

Disinhibition

Answer 29

removal of the normal inhibitions to overeating, resulting in the tendency to overeat in response to a number of different stimuli

Question 30

A theory of hedonic eating (Stroebe)

Answer 30

might be that restrained eaters are more sensitive to hedonic (pleasurable) properties of food

Question 31

The role of denial (Wegner et al)

Answer 31

attempting to suppress of deny a thought frequently has the opposite effect
asked some P’s to not think about a white bear but to ring a bell if they did, and other to think about the bear
those who told not to think about bear rang their bells more the other p’s

Question 32

Detail - the key to a successful diet (Redden)

Answer 32

the secret of successful dieting lies in the attention we pay to what is being eaten
people usually like experiences less as they repeat them
when it comes to dieting this makes it harder to stick to
suggests we should think of the details of a meal

Question 33

The jelly bean experiment (Redden)

Answer 33

gave 135 people 22 jelly beans each one at a time
with each bean info was flashed onto a screen
one group saw general info e.g bean 7
one group saw specific flavour details
p’s got bored eating beans faster if they only saw general info and enjoyed task more when seeing the specific flavour