Lecture 14- Food craving

Question 1

Addiction

Answer 1

is restricted to the extreme or psychopathological state where control over drug use is lost

Question 2

Dependence

Answer 2

Refers to the state of needing a drug to function within normal limits; it is often associated with tolerance and withdrawal (symptoms), and with addiction as defined above

Question 3

What phenomena accompany dependence?

Answer 3

Tolerance, sensitisation, withdrawal and craving

Question 4

What is food craving?

Answer 4

‘A strong desire to eat a particular food’

Question 5

Physiological need

Answer 5

One idea is that physiology detects a need for a substance

Leads to motivation to get the substance

In order to repair the bodily deficit

Question 6

Chocolate craving and ‘addiction’

WHY?

Answer 6

People more readily prepared to admit they are chocolate addicts as opposed to e.g. heroin

People admit this because perhaps they would like to cut down on consumption, but they are not so ashamed of it as they still share this “addiction” (unlike they would with drugs)

Question 7

Emmunauelle di Tomaso et al

Chocolate has psychoactive properties

Answer 7

Chocolate provides you with a feeling of pleasure when you eat it

Contains a cannabinoid like substance

Question 8

Smit, Gaffan & Rogers (2004)

Psychoactive effects of cocoa powder and methylxanthines (theobromine and caffeine)

Answer 8

Caffeine and cocoa powder was found to be psychoactive

Also showed effects of coca powder and caffeine on performance

There seems be a psychoactive effect but arguably much can be attributed to the caffeine content

Question 9

Can cheese be addictive?

Answer 9

High concentration of casein, a protein that can ignite your brain’s opioid receptors

Question 10

Ambivalence model of chocolate craving

Answer 10

We form a link between context and food

And when we are in that state it triggers a craving

External cues can arouse an appetite

Exposure to cues triggers representations of food

Cue control of specific appetites

Places, situations, feelings, etc. associated with eating

Question 11

Attribution

Answer 11

With regard to addiction: Explains the craving and blames the food

Question 12

Benton, Greenfield & Morgan (1998)

Attitudes to chocolate questionnaire

Answer 12

Craving associated with eating chocolate to relieve negative mood, and guilt with failure to resist eating chocolate (and with negative mood)

Positive statements about chocolate associated with its use as an energy-giving snack

Question 13

Craving in restrained eaters

Answer 13

Eliciting conditions

Eating resisted

Craving

Attribution of addiction

Question 14

Traditional food craving

Answer 14

Eliciting conditions

Craving

Eating

Question 15

Moreishness

Answer 15

Desire for more

Occur during eating

Due to attempted restraint of eating ahead of its termination by physiological satiety