researchers for eating behaviour Flashcards
Moods effect on food
Wansink: offered popcorn and grapes to P’s. Finding those watching a sad film ate more popcorn to cheer themselves up, those watching a comedy ate more grapes to prolong their mood.
Michaud: children consume more fatty foods due to stress before exams
Wolff: found female binge eaters had more negative moods on binge eating days than female normal eaters.
Cultural effects on food
Lawrence: used nationwide discussion groups to investigate food choices of ethnic minority females, Bangladeshi women learned cooking skills from their mothers and took pride in traditional cooking but admitted sometimes rating western junk food
Stead: found that minority ethnic groups studies lived in the poorest socio-economic conditions and had low disposable incomes and a poorer quality diet. They lacked the cooking skills as they were removed from their cultural teaching influences.
Health concerns effect on food
Monneuse: found people with a preference for high sugar in daily products chose items with a lowered sugar content suggesting health concerns affect eating behaviour
Dennison: found reduced fat milk was drunk more in families where parent were college educated
Steptoe: ranked factors taken into account when selecting food, sensory qualities ranked above health concerns
Restraint theory
Ruderman: dieters end up eating more food than non dieters
Wardle: 3 groups of women, diet, exercise and control, the diet group ate the most
Ogden: found the more dieters tried to suppress the thought of “forbidden food” the more pre-occupied they became with them, suggesting denial creates more pressure to break a diet
Other explanations for failure of dieting
Jeffrey: found obese people start regaining weight after 6 months due to failing to maintain behaviour changes, suggesting factors like lack of motivation and social pressure have negative influences
Cummings: low calorie diets stimulate appetite by increasing ghrelin production by 24%
Explanations for success
Thomas: financial incentive didn’t promote significant weight loss
Lowe: 71% of weight watchers members maintained a body weight loss of at least 5%
Biological explanations for eating
Hetherington: lesions to VMH lead to hyperphagia (overeating)
Anad: lesions to the LH lead to aphagia (underrating)
Powley: rats that lose weight by being starved then having lesions to their LH don’t lose further weight suggesting the slimmed to a new set point before lesions were created, supporting the theory
Sweet preferences
Meiselman: people of all ages like sweet food, especially true for other species
Desor: using choice preference and facial expressions found neonates prefer sweet foods to bitter, implying the preference is innate
Logue: specific receptors for test, genetic component so must be biological
Salty preferences
Denton: innate preference found in many animal species, suggest is has a survival value, determined by evolution
Beauchamp: people with sodium deficiency have innate response to ingest salt and find it more palatable at higher concentrations and eat more than related family members appears to be a an evolutionary determined mechanism that helps maintain sodium levels in the body for survival
Psychodynamic explanation for obesity
Can be tested by seeing whether psychotherapy reveals underlying, common, childhood based traumas and whether therapies help to alleviate the condition
Case studies of 5 P’s being treated for morbid obesity and sleep eating. Self reporting found relationship between childhood abuse, sleep eating and obesity. Eating is a de-stressor and obesity reduces sexual attractiveness
Behaviourist explanation for obesity
Foster: treatment based on CC are successful as they learn new cues
However study doesn’t directly measure the causes of obesity so can’t be sure of what the findings show
Devlin: O.C techniques successful resulting in average weight loss after 5 months of between 15 and 20 pounds
Cognitive explanations for obesity
Braet: obese children were hypersensitive to food related words, suggesting information process for food stimuli
Hard to test and so hard to prove validity of people being hypersensitive to food and that it could cause obesity
O’rourke: cognitive therapies led to significant weight loss
Genetic explanations for obesity
Frayling: people with 2 copies of the fat mass and obesity gene FTO had a 70% increased risk of becoming obese
Wardle: assessed twins on body fat deposits finding a hereditability factor of 77%
Evolutionary explanations for obesity
Dimeglio: P’s given liquid calories rather than equal amounts of solid calories put on more weight. Suggested we’re not supposed to cope with them
Friedman: pacific islanders, only a minority stay lean but have same diet suggesting thrifty gene
