Psychological explanations for obesity

Question 1

AO1 (Psychodynamic)

Answer 1

• The psychodynamic explanation
o The psychodynamic explanation of human behaviour. Sees abnormal behaviours as being due to unresolved conflict occurring during childhood development from psychosexual stages.
o The psychodynamic explanations sees obesity particularly as arising from unresolved conflicts, such as emotional deprivation or overindulgence during the oral stage, where the libido is focused on the mouth
o An adult personality characterised by oral gratification develops and manifest itself in over eating. It is also possible that obesity may be linked in some cases to other factors, such as depression or low self-esteem, with these factors being explicable by psychodynamic means.
o The psychodynamic explanation can be tested by seeing whether or not people with obesity have underlying, childhood based traumas and whether or not psychoanalysis can help alleviate this abnormal eating condition.

Question 2

AO2- (Felliti)

Answer 2

I There is evidence to support the psychodynamic explanation of obesity.
E Felliti (2001) investigated five cases of sleep eating, a condition where people consume food was asleep-which suggests a psychodynamic explanation. Felliti used a case study method where participants being treated for morbid obesity and sleep eating self-reported on their condition.
A relationship was found between childhood abuse/sexual behaviour, sleep-eating and obesity. The sleep-eating and obesity may be understood as an unconscious protective device and anxiety reducer, with eating being seen as a de-stressor obesity reducing sexual attractiveness.
C This supports the validity of the psychodynamic approach as Felliti’s study shows that there was a relationship between childhood abuse and eating behaviour. This shows that childhood experiences play a role in determining a person’s abnormal eating behaviour.

Question 3

AO2 (Rhodes Farm)

Answer 3

I There is further evidence to support the psychodynamic explanation of obesity.
E Rhodes Farm is a centre that believes that eating disorders need to be treated psychologically, rather than in a traditional hospital as they believe that eating disorders can be explained by the psychodynamic explanation. They treat the children who go there with psychodynamic treatments such as dream analysis, free association and projective test once a week. 90% of Rhodes farm’s patients are on track to lose weight, showing that psychodynamic treatments clearly work.
C This supports the validity of the psychodynamic explanation for obesity because psychodynamic treatments at Rhodes farm were successful. This means that the psychodynamic explanation is a valid explanation for eating disorders.

Question 4

AO1 (Behaviourist Approach)

Answer 4

o Behaviourism sees obesity occurring through maladaptive eating behaviours. Behaviourism suggested three ways which obesity could arise:
o Classical conditioning. Obesity is seen as arising through food cues becoming associated with the natural pleasure response that eating food brings for example coming to associate eating with happiness.
o Operant conditioning. Obesity is seen as arising through food being used to positively reinforce desirable behaviour for example being given a chocolate for doing well at school.
o Social learning theory. Obesity is seen as being caused by the observation and imitation of role models. If parents are obese, children may copy the eating behaviour. If these people are portrayed in a positive manner in the media, (for example jolly or funny) then overeating maybe imitated to try to achieve parity with the role models.

Question 5

AO2 (Foster)

Answer 5

I	There is evidence to support the behaviourist explanation of obesity.
E	Foster (2006) found that treatments based on classical conditioning as successful as they help patients to identify cues triggering inappropriate eating and to learn new responses to them. Therefore, causes may be due to classical conditioning too. For example getting popcorn when you go to cinema.
C	This supports the validity of classical conditioning as an explanation for obesity Foster's research shows that people eat food that they associate with certain cue. When this association is broken, weight loss can occur leading to the suggestion of a behavioural explanation.

Question 6

AO2 (Hardeman)

Answer 6

I There is further evidence to support the behaviourist explanation of obesity.
E Hardeman et al (2000) found that role models who encouraged a healthy lifestyle led to significant weight loss in treating obesity. This supports the social learning explanation. An example of this is James Cordon’s weight loss, which could act as vicarious reinforcement for obese people as he’s famous and successful so this could inspire obese people to lose weight
C This supports the validity of the social learning explanation for weight loss as people will want to replicate the success of people like James Cordon.

Question 7

AO2 (Self-reports/Questionnaires)

Answer 7

I A great deal of research into obesity has used self-report methods for example questionnaires.
E Whilst self-report methods like questionnaires allow researchers to investigate a large sample of people relatively quickly and cheaply, there is a social desirability problem. Some people may not want to tell the truth because they may be embarrassed if, for example there excessively eating things that they shouldn’t be like chocolate.
C This questions the validity of research into obesity as self-reports can be an unreliable and invalid way of researching obesity.

Question 8

AO2 Biological explanation

Answer 8

I There may be a biological explanation for obesity.
E There may be an inherited genetic basis to obesity, with some individuals being genetically predisposed to become obese, and those with multiple genes towards obesity having an increased risk of developing the condition. Research comparing the degree of obesity of adopted participants with their adoptive and biological parents found that individuals weight was more correlated with their biological relatives.
C this questions the validity of research into the psychological explanation for obesity as research shows that genetics also clearly play a part. for example, they may have a damaged pre-frontal cortex

Question 9

AO2 (Reductionism)

Answer 9

I Researching into the psychological explanation of obesity is reductionist.
E On the one hand, this involves breaking down phenomena into one simple component which provides a simple level of explanation for example that obesity is a result of childhood trauma.
On the other hand, research may oversimplify complex process such as an eating disorder like obesity. It also ignores factors that may be involved in obesity and over eating- for example faulty thinking- people may believe that they are eating healthily when in fact they are not.
C This questions the validity of research into obesity as it assumes that the psychological explanation is the only one, so discounts other explanations like the cognitive one.