Exam 3: Psychology of Eating and Diet/Exercise

Question 1

why is eating important?

Answer 1

• Do it several times a day
• Food choices impact health
• Source of pleasure/reinforcement
• Crucial for sustaining life

Question 2

definition of everything by Hua tribe of Papau

Answer 2

that which can be eating and that which cannot

Question 3

how does eating cut across all areas of psychology? (7)

Answer 3

• Developmental: how infants regulate food intake
• Cognitive: memory/cognition impact how much is eaten
• Social: eating is influenced by other people and situations
• Clinical: disordered eating
• Health: eating has clear health effects
• Personality: individual differences in eating habits
• Cultural: major differences across cultures

Question 4

how determines how much people eat?

Answer 4

When others are, after you workout, reward, hungry, weight goals, routine (time), see/smell food

Question 5

what the hell effect (boundary model)

Answer 5

with dieters, they create a boundary in their mind about how much food they are allowed to eat but when you cross the boundary there is nothing to stop you from continuing to eat more
- Ignore feelings of hunger and ignore feelings of fullness ⇒ focus on their own rules about fat or calories

Question 6

results of dieters with no milkshakes

Answer 6

eat a little bit of ice cream after

Question 7

results of dieters with 2 milkshakes

Answer 7

eat a lot of ice cream after

Question 8

results of non dieters with 0 milkshakes

Answer 8

eat a lot of ice cream after

Question 9

results of non dieters with 2 milkshakes

Answer 9

eat a little bit after

Question 10

if your eating is regulated by hunger how do you act?

Answer 10

you don’t tend to binge eat ⇒ eat in response to hunger as a healthy eater

Question 11

what are contributions of the first diet study? (4)

Answer 11

• Dieters regulate their eating differently than non dieters
• Dieting may lead to binge eating
• Recognized dieters are an important group for psychologists to study
• Inventing a new methodology for studying eating

Question 12

Consumption of dieters vs non dieters when a non fat preload is labeled as high fat

Answer 12

• dieters thought they broke their diet but didn’t actually
• Still ate a lot just as if they the high calorie shake was real
• Not about fat or sugar but about cognitive factors

Question 13

what did consumption of a non fat preload labeled as high fat show?

Answer 13

eating a certain amount was not a biological impulse

Question 14

Consumption of dieters vs non dieters when a non fat preload is labeled as high fat

Answer 14

• Don’t feel like they broke their diets
• The dieter bar isn’t tall because they don’t believe they ruined their diet

Question 15

Consumption of dieters vs non dieters when stressed

Answer 15

• Stress makes dieters overeat but not other people as much
• Dieters eat more when stressed or depressed
• Sometimes stressed non dieters eat less

Question 16

Consumption of dieters vs non dieters when others are in the room

Answer 16

• They are influenced by the other person in the room
• This does not affect non dieters as much

Question 17

conclusions of the pre-load diet study?

Answer 17

• The eating of non dieters is influenced more by hunger than by cognitive, social, or emotional factors
• The eating of dieters is influenced more by cognitive, social, and emotional factors than by hunger

Question 18

how did people with memory damage and non memory damaged brains respond to lunches given to them?

Answer 18

• control patients with correct memories ate the first meal and laughed/rejected the second meal
• for non memory subjects, on all occasions they ate the first lunch and they all ate the second lunch fully ⇒ they also ate a third lunch
• tells us that memory matters

Question 19

how does memory influence our meals?

Answer 19

Important for starting and stopping a meal ⇒ more important than hunger and satiety

Question 20

results of eating study where children ate as much as they wanted for 6 days

Answer 20

• Amount of calories eaten at particular meals from day to day ⇒ highly variable
• Amount of calories eaten per day from day to day ⇒ highly stable
• children regulate their intake by day ⇒ parents don’t think about the whole day

Question 21

what should parents decide in the division of labor for feeding kids? (3)

Answer 21

• What foods to offer
• When meals will occur
• Where meals will occur

Question 22

what do kids decide in the division of labor for feeding? (2)

Answer 22

• How much to eat
• Whether to eat at all
  → put good foods out and kids regulate themselves

Question 23

how to make your kids hate a food (3)

Answer 23

• Reward them for eating it
• Require them to eat it
• Remove it from the normal food rotation

Question 24

how to make your kids like a food (2)

Answer 24

• Limit how much of it they can have
• Keep it in the normal food rotation

Question 25

if you want to find out as much as possible about the food someone likes and eats what’s the best question to ask?

Answer 25

What is your ethnic or cultural group
- Food choice is highly based on culture not biology

Question 26

what are psychological effects of hunger?

Answer 26

• Irritable
• Unreasonable
• Weak
• Apathetic
• Have hallucinations ⇒ visual
• Become obsessed with food

Question 27

apathetic

Answer 27

don’t care about anything
- Hunger pains ⇒ will do anything to make you feel full
- Cannibalize one another

Question 28

what cannot be separated in natural starvation cases?

Answer 28

psychology of hunger vs psychology of fear

Question 29

what was the semi-starvation study done by Angel Keys?

Answer 29

• 36 conscious objectors from WW2 ⇒ lived in dorms for one year
  1. Control period: 3 months ⇒ ate freely and lived in one big dorm room underneath the old stadium (3,900 cals/day)
• Cognitive ability, organ function, memory, endurance, etc. with trustable measurements many times in the control period => Also did psychiatric measurements
  2. Semi-starvation period: 6 months (1,570 cals/day [40% of normal diet which is still a decent amount of calories])
  3. Controlled eating rehabilitation: 3 months (2000-3200 cals/day)
• 4 different rehab diets to see which worked best
  4. Free eating rehabilitation: 3+ months

Question 30

how was weight and fat altered during and after starvation? (4)

Answer 30

• weight comes on faster than it goes off
• Body fat does the same just more extreme
• Still not back at starting level even a year later
• Metabolisms slowed way down and stayed slowed down for a long time

Question 31

psychological effects of starvation (12)

Answer 31

• Obsession with foods
• Eating rituals
• Weak
• Tired
• Irritable
• No self control
• Anxious
• Nervous
• Self centered
• Apathetic
• Clinical depression
• Psychotic reaction in ⅙ of people

Question 32

effects after the semi-starvation study was done (4)

Answer 32

• took a long time for them to recover ⇒ depression, irritability, and hunger pain stayed for almost a year
• Gorged on food ⇒ 11,000 calories per day but reported always feeling hungry without being able to physically eat another bite
• No longer were able to control their food intake
• the only thing that worked for rehab was to give them as many calories as possible

Question 33

conclusions of diet based on the semi-starvation study (2)

Answer 33

• the amount of food people eat is based on hunger, dieting status, cognitive, emotional, and developmental factors
• starvation can lead to psychological disturbances and food obsessions, and these effects last long after food becomes available

Question 34

how have rates of obesity changed since the 1960s?

Answer 34

we are in an obesity epidemic since 70/80s
- May be leveling off now

Question 35

reasons for the obesity epidemic? (6)

Answer 35

• Rise of fast food industry
• Larger portion sizes
• More sedentary lifestyles
• Corn lobby ⇒ corn syrup is in everything
• Successful anti-smoking campaigns ⇒ people gain weight when they quit
• Prices of gas

Question 36

dieting

Answer 36

severely restricting your calorie intake for the purpose of losing weight

Question 37

how do doctors answer the problem of dieting?

Answer 37

1. is obesity unhealthy
2. is dieting safe
3. is dieting effective
   → all 3 should be a yes for dieting

Question 38

what are the standards for weight?

Answer 38

• Became that definition of a successful diet is losing 40 lbs ⇒ only 5% of obese dieters succeeded
• Lowered the standard to losing 20 lbs
• changed to 10% loss of starting weight
• Changed to 5% of starting weight
• Institute of medicine said 5% of starting weight and keep it off for a year (measured when you start the diet)

Question 39

how does weight loss maintenance work across 18 months

Answer 39

seems like people keep pretty steady weight gain after losing weight
- Would only be reported to the end of the study and never followed up more ⇒ can’t assume the weight still won’t come back even more
- very few studies follow up for 2 years or more

Question 40

how many times does the average weight watchers customer enroll?

Answer 40

4 times
- If they tell this to consumers it will discourage them
- Companies refuse to let people see their data and don’t even mention it in their business plans

Question 41

long term diet studies results

Answer 41

studies with control groups (n=21)
- Avg weight change of dieters ⇒ lost 2 lbs (this doesn’t even approach the 5% standard)
- Avg weight change of controls ⇒ gained 1 lb
- Control groups weight doesn’t change

Question 42

if weight was based on calories eaten - calories coming off what two conditions would exist?

Answer 42

• thin people who eat what they want and don’t exercise
• obese people who don’t eat much and regularly exercise

Question 43

do genes or the environment play a stronger role?

Answer 43

genes play a stronger role
- there is not a gene for weight
- There are many things influencing our weight that are genetically based ⇒ 200+ genes

Question 44

what do monozygotic twins show with their weight?

Answer 44

Share 100% of genes ⇒ their weight is really close

Question 45

what do dizygotic twins show with their weight

Answer 45

Share about 50% of genes ⇒ weights are similar but not identical like identical twins

Question 46

components of genetic differences? (5)

Answer 46

1. How fast you burn calories off ⇒ metabolism
2. How hungry you are after you eat ⇒ hormone levels
   - Leptin vs ghrelin
3. How tempted you are by certain foods ⇒ hormone levels
4. How much you think about foods ⇒ neurological differences
5. How rewarding certain foods are ⇒ neurological differences
   - Dopamine responses

Question 47

metabolism

Answer 47

how efficiently you use the calories you take in and how many you burn running the systems in your body
- How you get thin vs fat people who either eat or don’t eat

Question 48

how does weight change from the same diet vs overeating?

Answer 48

people on the same diet will have very different responses (both gains and losses)
- same things happen when people overeat

Question 49

how does weight change with similar exercises?

Answer 49

• dieting gets in the way of keeping weight off because your body responds and changes
• When you lose weight your metabolism changes so you have more calories left over to be stored as fat ⇒ after dieting
• Eating the same calories on the diet from before losing weight will cause you to gain weight later in the diet
• You will feel hungrier eating the same foods on the same diet

Question 50

mechanisms of diet failure (3)

Answer 50

1. biological pathways
2. biopsychosocial pathways
3. psychological pathways

Question 51

biological pathways in diet failure?

Answer 51

Negative calorie balance and short term weight loss leads to:
- Leptin and insulin decrease, ghrelin increase, catabolic inhibition, cholecystokinin sensitivity, Anabolic stimulation which leads to:
- Decreased metabolism, increased food intake, and increased fat deposition

Question 52

biopsychosocial pathways

Answer 52

Stress leads to:
- HPA activation
- SNS activity
- Negative health behaviors
- Increased food intake

Question 53

psychological pathways

Answer 53

violation/perceived violation of diet, cognitive load, negative affect lead to overeating

Question 54

how does stress lead to weight gain?

Answer 54

• Decreased physical activity
• Increased food intake
• Disrupted sleep

Question 55

SNS activation pathway

Answer 55

SNS activation ⇒ sAA increase ⇒ caloric absorption

Question 56

HPA axis activation

Answer 56

HPA axis activation ⇒ cortisol increase ⇒ insulin resistance ⇒ visceral fat deposition

Question 57

how was the calorie restriction and monitoring diet study conducted?

Answer 57

• classic diet
• food diary
• food provided
• control

Question 58

classic diet

Answer 58

dietician teaches someone how to be on a low calorie diet of 1,200 calories a day and monitoring by a food deity
- restricting and monitoring

Question 59

food diary

Answer 59

participants just monitored the food they ate in a log
- no restricting and monitoring

Question 60

food provided diet

Answer 60

restricting eating without having them monitor⇒ they were given food pre-packaged with different menus
- restricting calories and no monitoring

Question 61

control diet

Answer 61

neither restricted or monitored
- no restricting and no monitoring

Question 62

results of the 2x2 diet study? (3)

Answer 62

• Restricting diet: cortisol output increased
• Not restricting diet: cortisol output did not change
• Monitoring did not matter
  → dieting may be causing a physiological stress response undermining the diet

Question 63

evidence against dieting being safe? (6)

Answer 63

• Stress ⇒ consequences of stress
• Mood problems ⇒ depression, guilt, shame
• Cognitive impairments ⇒ preoccupation with food
• Physical harms ⇒ cardiovascular disease and impaired immune functioning, mortality
• Weight cycling ⇒ losing and gaining (bad)
• Telomere length ⇒ shortening

Question 64

obesity health confounds (4)

Answer 64

• Sedentary lifestyle ⇒ cardiovascular problems
• Weight cycling ⇒ also bad on your heart and more likely for obese people
• Under use of the medical system ⇒ obese people are more likely to avoid the medical system bc doctors are strongly anti fat which makes them uncomfortable
• Poverty/SES ⇒ obese people are more likely to be poor

Question 65

what are the correlations between obesity and health (3)

Answer 65

• Correlations are not strong
• Correlations are not consistent
• Only the most extreme levels of obesity are reliably related to poor health outcomes (Diabetes, osteoarthritis)
  Note: fitness matters more than fatness

Question 66

when you start exercising what happens?

Answer 66

your health improves before you lose any weight
-Exercise improves your health even if you don’t lose any weight at all
- if you are fit, your risk of death doesn’t change based on your weight

Question 67

4 healthy habits

Answer 67

1. Eat 5+ servings of fruits/vegetables per day
2. Exercise regularly ⇒ 12+ times per month
3. Drink no more than 1 alcoholic drink/day (W) and 2 (M)
4. Don’t smoke
   → you can be obese and be healthy as long as you do healthy behaviors
   → instead of recommending dieting to treat obesity, we should recommend exercise to improve health