Psychological Explanations For Obesity Flashcards
support for restraint theory:
Wardle and Beales (1988)
W&B: randomly assigned obese women to either a diet group, exercise group or non-treatment group for seven weeks.
Their food intake and appetite were regularly assessed; at week six, food intake was assessed under stressful conditions and the results showed that women in the diet condition ate more than women in the other two groups
a challenge to restraint theory:
Tomiyama et. al (2009)
argued that most research relating to the restraint theory have been restricted to the laboratory. He argues that outside of these artificial settings restrained eaters would be able to control their eating.
In a study, they showed that dieters who tracked their food intake over a period of days did not overeat or violate their diet.
disinhibition may not be important in all groups:
Atlas et. al (2002)
Bellisle et. al (2004)
Most research on this topic has been restricted to white women and bass our knowledge is limited regarding men and other racial groups
A: found that restraint and disinhibition scores were lower in Afro American students compared to white students; suggesting that disinhibited eating behaviours vary.
B: found that restraint and disinhibition scores are lower in men compared to women; showing that disinhibition might be a more important influence in female weight gain compared to men
disinhibited eating may be related to attachment style:
Wilkinson et. al (2010)
This inhibited eating may be linked to insecure avoidant attachment style
W: studied adults who is BMI ranged from 17 to 41 and found that attachment anxiety was significantly linked to disinhibited eating and BMI. A tendency to deal with anxiety through over eating eventually leads to an increase in BMI.
Thus anxiously attached individuals may be more sensitive to significant life events (leaving home) and therefore engage in disinhibited eating as a way of coping.
