Food and behaviour Flashcards
What factors may influence what and how much we eat?
Mood Tiredness/sleep quality Social occaisons Time Ease of access to fast food restaurants Advertising Food we ate as a child and what people around you eat Social media Financial factors Shift work Physical activity
Define malnutrition
Deficiencies, excesses or imbalances in a person’s
intake of energy and/or nutrients.
What two groups does malnutrition encompass?
Undernutrition
Overweight, obesity
What clinical features may you see in someone who is undernourished?
stunted growth
wasting
underweight
micronutrient deficiencies or insufficiencies
What clinical features may you see in someone who is overweight/obese?
Evidence of non-communicable disease eg heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer
Name some chronic medical conditions that require nutritional support
Coeliac disease Type 1 and 2 diabetes Heart disease Stroke Cancer Cystic fibrosis Eating disorders Failure to thrive IBD Sarcopenic obesity in the elderly obese
What early factors influence our feeding behaviour?
Maternal diet
Breastfeeding - may be positive for taste preference and bottle fed babies often end up being overfed as parents feel they need to finish the bottle, rather than being in tune with their baby’s appetite and forumla milk has more calories than breast milk
Types of food exposed to in the weaning period
Age of introduction of solid food
Parenting practices
Babies nad children have greater taste preference for the foods they were exposed to in the amniotic fluid, breast milk and formula
What is the evidence that the maternal diet is important in determining our diet?
- Amniotic fluid is influences by the maternal diet and this influences taste preference as human foetuses swallow a significant amount of amniotic fluid during gestation
- Taste and olfactory systems are capable of detecting flavour information prior to birth
- Amniotic fluid and human milk transmit volatiles from the maternal diet providing early chemosensory experience
Which populations are less likely to breastfeed
Very young mothers
Low SES
What are the two types of milk that are produced when a mother breastfeeds?
Foremilk - beginning of a feed (watery)
Hindmilk - end of a feed (> energy dense)
What is the colostrum and what is its content?
Colostrum produced 3 days after birth
High in protein and protective’ factors
What protective factors does breast milk contain?
o Enzymes - lipase, lactoferrin which aids dental hygeine
o Gut protection - Epidermal growth factor, secretory IgA, anti-inflammatories
o Anti-infective - bifidus factors (enhances growth of good bacteria), White cells, antibodies, viral fragments
What advantages does breastfeeding lead to in terms of taste preferences?
Acceptance of new food during weaning
Less picky eaters in childhood
Diet richer in fruit and veg
What strategies might parents use to get their children to eat if they are fussy eaters
Coercion
Persuasion
Contingencies - I think this is if you eat all your greens, you get dessert
What effect does using food as an incentive to eat other foods have on the long term?
increases liking for the reward and reduces liking for the food you are trying to get them to eat
What is a non-organic feeding disorder?
feeding aversion, food refusal, food selectivity, fussy eaters, failure to advance to age-appropriate foods, negative mealtime interactions
What is chemical continuity?
transmission of certain flavours from the
maternal diet via amniotic fluid and then breast milk
Define eating disorder
“clinically meaningful behavioural or
psychological pattern having to do with eating or weight that is associated with distress, disability, or with substantially increased risk of morbidity or mortality”
What is disordered eating?
restraint; strict dieting; disinhibition;emotional eating; binge-eating; night eating; weight & shape concerns; inappropriate compensatory behaviours that do not warrant a clinical diagnosis
What are the three main ways that people usually diet?
- restrict the total amount of food eaten
- restrict certain food types
- avoid eating for long periods of time
What are the potential problems with dieting?
- risk factor for developing eating disorders in some people
- results in loss of lean body mass and not just fat
- slows metabolic rate and energy expenditure (as lean body mass is they key driver of metabolic rate)
- chronic dieting may disrupt ‘normal’ appetite responses and increase subjective sensations of hunger
What are the challenges pts face when dieting?
- long term weight loss is challenging
- weight cycling from repeated diet relapse results in overshooting
What factors make people susceptible to obesity?
- unresponsive to internal cues that signal satiety
- vulnerable to external cues that signal availability of palatable food, especially portion size
