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Health Psych > Week 4: Health-Compromising Behaviours > Flashcards

Week 4: Health-Compromising Behaviours Flashcards

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1
Q

Health compromising behaviours are prone to…

A

Stigmatisation

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2
Q

What are health-compromising behaviours?

A

Behaviours that harm your current or future health

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3
Q

What are the characteristics of health-compromising behaviours?

A
  • Windows of vulnerability
  • Social (peer) influence
  • Pleasurable, and ironically, reduce stress
  • Develop gradually at diff. stages of vulnerability
  • Sig. overlap in risk factors/causes that trigger a host of unhealthy behaviours
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4
Q

What are windows of vulnerability?

A

Certain stages in life where people are vulnerable

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5
Q

What is obesity?

A

A medical condition, defined by excessive accumulation of body fat

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6
Q

How is obesity “diagnosed”?

A

Based on one’s Body Mass Index (BMI)

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7
Q

How is BMI calculated?

A

W / (H x H)

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8
Q

What are the categories for BMI?

A

Normal: 19-24 kg/m2
Overweight: 25-29 kg/m2
Obese: >30 kg/m2

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9
Q

What is the percentage of people who are miscategorised based on their BMI?

A

18%

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10
Q

What other info is required to make a firm diagnosis?

A

E.g. Body fat, family history, lifestyle

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11
Q

What are the reasons for increases in obesity?

A
  • Increase in wealth
  • Increase in caloric intake
  • Increase in portion sizes
  • Increase in fast food and microwaveable foods
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12
Q

What are the health complications for obesity?

A
  • Contributes to death for all forms of cancer
  • Strongly tied to various cardiovascular-related diseases (e.g. atherosclerosis, heart failure, hypertension) & Type II diabetes
  • Increased risks/complications in surgery, anesthesia administration and childbearing
  • Linked to poorer cognitive skills as early as in adolescence
    ==> Central adiposity, or abdominally localised fat, is especially potent in predicting these conditions
  • Disability and early mortality
  • More physiologically reactive to stress (fat tissues promote inflammation)
  • More psychologically distressed due to stigma
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13
Q

What are the risk factors for obesity?

A
  • Social class (and values)
  • Social networks
  • Dieting
  • Stress and depression
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14
Q

How is social class a risk factor for obesity?

A
  • In US, low SES women more likely to be obese than high SES women (but not for men)
  • In SG, parents’ education level and household income is positively associated with BMI knowledge and negatively associated with children’s BMI
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15
Q

How are social networks a risk factor for obesity?

A
  • A person’s chance of becoming obese increases substantially when surrounded by friends, siblings, or partners who have become obese
  • Social networks determine SOCIAL NORMS about obesity
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16
Q

How is dieting a risk factor for obesity?

A

1) Dieting reduces metabolism

2) Set point theory of weight

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17
Q

How does dieting lead to obesity by reducing metabolism?

A
  • When dieting, body tries to enhance efficiency of food use by lowering metabolic rate
  • Once dieters resume their normal food intake, the body’s metabolic rate stays low, making weight gain easy
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18
Q

How does dieting lead to obesity based on the set point theory of weight?

A
  • Everyone has an ideal biological weight (“the set point”) that does not change easily
  • When on diet, the body actively tries to get its weight back to set point, making it harder to lose weight
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19
Q

How is stress and depression a risk factor for obesity?

A
  • For normal eaters (non-dieting and non-obese), stress actually suppresses physiological cues of hunger
  • For those who are overweight or obese, stress tends to REDUCE SELF-CONTROL and DISINHIBIT FOOD CONSUMPTION
  • Vicious cycle of stress eating, depression and obesity
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20
Q

What is the vicious cycle of stress eating, depression and obesity?

A

Stress eaters are more likely to experience fluctuations in negative emotions and feelings of depression

Ppl who are depressed are also more likely to gain weight, and in turn, become more depressed, and respond by stress eating

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21
Q

What are the interventions for obesity?

A
  • Weight-loss programs and diets, regular exercise and sleep
  • Surgery to reduce stomach’s capacity to hold food
  • CBT
  • Prevention within families
  • Social engineering
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22
Q

How do weight-loss programs work as interventions for obesity?

A

Provide strict low fat and low carbohydrate diets

Help initially, but not sustainable on their own

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23
Q

How does maintaining regular exercise and sleep work as interventions for obesity?

A

Essential in increasing and regulating metabolism

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24
Q

What are the types of surgery to reduce stomach’s capacity to hold food?

A
  • “Stapling up” stomach

- Lap band surgery: Implant a band at top of stomach to restrict food inflow into stomach

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25
Q

What are the side effects of surgery as interventions for obesity?

A

Gastric and intestinal distress

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26
Q

How does CBT work as an intervention for obesity?

A

CBT with additional focus on attentional retaining, exercise, stress management and social support

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27
Q

What is attentional retaining?

A

Distracting oneself from attending to food cues

Remove stimuli in environment

28
Q

How does prevention within families work as an intervention for obesity?

A
  • Help parents adopt good meal plans and eating habits at home, limit snacking
  • Incorporate physical activity
29
Q

How does social engineering work as an intervention for obesity?

A

Providing food labels with more nutritional info, limit availability of unhealthy foods, soda tax

30
Q

How does weight stigma affect obesity?

A

Discrimination worsens feelings of shame and subsequently their mental health

This reduces motivation to take action and willingness to use health services or seek help

31
Q

Why is it important to address weight stigma?

A

Targeting patient motivation and efficacy alone is not enough to address the obesity epidemic

Public health efforts need to also focus on creating awareness and educating the public about weight stigma and reducing discrimination

32
Q

What is the window of vulnerability for eating disorders?

A

15-24 years old

33
Q

What are the most common forms of eating disorders?

A

Anorexia nervosa

Bulimia

34
Q

What is anorexia nervosa?

A

An obsessive disorder involving extreme exercise and dieting, resulting in body weight that is severely below optimal level (BMI < 15) and eventually leads to starvation and death

35
Q

What are the risk factors for anorexia nervosa?

A
  • Low levels of serotonin, dopamine and estrogen (all linked to anxiety)
  • Early exposure to stress (extreme stress, trauma) and dysregulated biological stress system (become hyper-reactive)
  • Low sense of control coupled with high need for approval and perfectionistic behaviour
  • Body image distortions
  • Mothers with similar preoccupation with own weight and eating problems
36
Q

What are the interventions for anorexia nervosa?

A
  • Bring patients’ weight back up to safe level
  • CBT (limited success)
  • Family therapy
  • Targeting faulty societal beliefs about thinness and social norms about body image, and promote idea of health
37
Q

Why does CBT have limited success with anorexics?

A

Many of them are unmotivated to change their behaviours

38
Q

How does family therapy work as an intervention for anorexia?

A

Involves positive communication of emotion and conflict, as well as keeping track of anorexic family member’s eating and behaviours

39
Q

What is bulimia?

A

Characterised by alternating cycles of binge eating and purging

40
Q

What is binging?

A

An out-of-control reaction of the body to restore weight

41
Q

What is purging?

A

An effort to regain control over weight

42
Q

What are the risk factors for bulimia?

A
  • Higher than normal stress reactivity and hormonal dysfunctions
  • Strong genetic basis based on twin studies
  • Families that place high value on thinness and appearance
43
Q

What are the interventions for bulimia?

A

CBT works best when combined with medication, such as SSRIs or antipsychotics

44
Q

What are the characteristics of substance dependence?

A
  • Physical dependence
  • Craving
  • Addiction
  • Withdrawal
45
Q

What is physical dependence?

A

Body incorporates substance into its regular functioning, often resulting in tolerance to substance

46
Q

What is tolerance?

A

Over time, the body adapts to the regular usage and requires a larger dose to achieve the same effect

47
Q

What is craving?

A

An automatic desire to consume the substance as a result of physical dependence and conditioning with environmental cues

48
Q

What is addiction?

A

When the person has become physically or psychologically dependent on the substance after repeated use OVER TIME

49
Q

What is withdrawal?

A

Unpleasant symptoms experienced when person stops using substance which they have become dependent on or addicted to

50
Q

What are some examples of substance dependence disorders?

A

Alcoholism and problem drinking, smoking

51
Q

Alcoholism affects…

A
  • Physical health (e.g. hypertension, stroke, scarring of liver)
  • Cognitive function (e.g. brain atrophy, reduced brain volume)
  • Aggressive and impulsive behaviours (e.g. assaults, homicides, suicides) that directly lead to mortality
52
Q

What are the risk factors for alcoholism and problem drinking?

A
  • Males
  • Low SES
  • Parents who drink, resulting in modeling of behaviour
  • Social stresses (e.g. financial strain, low job autonomy, sense of powerlessness)
  • Depression
  • Twin studies and family studies of alcoholic sons and fathers suggests some genetic basis
53
Q

What are the two windows of vulnerability for alcoholism and problem-drinking?

A
  • 12-21, where dependency generally begins

- Late middle age, when drinking is used as a stress coping method

54
Q

What are the interventions for alcoholism?

A
  • Detoxification in a controlled medical setting + CBT
  • High SES, stable envmts
  • Social engineering
55
Q

How does SES affect interventions for alcoholism?

A

High SES alcoholics tend to do better in treatment programs when they also have highly stable envmts, such as regular jobs, stable family, and circle of friends

Low SES alcoholics often don’t have these psychosocial buffers and tend to do worse

56
Q

What are examples of social engineering for alcoholism?

A

Banning alcohol advertising, taxation on alcohol, raising legal drinking age, enforcing penalties for drink driving

57
Q

Smoking is linked to…

A
  • Respiratory disorders
  • Lower birth weight in offspring
  • Affects normal fetal development
  • Increases risk of erectile dysfunction by 50%
58
Q

What are the effects of smoking on others?

A

Family members or co-workers can suffer the same disorders through passive smoking, or inhaling secondhand smoke

59
Q

What are the synergistic effects of smoking?

A

Smoking worsens effects of risk factors for other diseases

E.g. If you alr have cholesterol problems, smoking makes you more likely to get heart diseases

E.g. If you’re already reactive to stress, smoking increases your HR and BP, making you even more reactive

E.g. If you are alr in a low SES environment, smoking increases existing risk of low SES on general health outcomes

60
Q

What are the risk factors of smoking?

A
  • Family members who smoke
  • Presence of peers who smoke; social contagion
  • Stress and depression (esp. among low SES)
  • Low self-esteem, sense of powerlessness
61
Q

How do ppl get addicted to smoking?

A

Addictive properties of nicotine in cigarettes

Nicotine alters level of “feel good” neurotransmitters (e.g. dopamine and norepinephrine)

Ironically, elevations of these neurotransmitters produce TEMPORARY improvements in concentration and mood

When nicotine levels in the body drops, you exp. withdrawals, driving the need to smoke to get nicotine levels back up in your system

62
Q

What are the interventions for smoking?

A

Nicotine replacement therapy
CBT, with focus on attentional retaining and relapse prevention
Social support and stress mgmt to identify alternate sources of stress relief

63
Q

What is nicotine replacement therapy?

A

Nicotine patches that release nicotine in small, controlled doses into bloodstream to deal with initial withdrawal

E-cigarettes

64
Q

What are e-cigarettes? What are its related issues?

A

Turn nicotine-infused liquid into vapour

Issues: Still addictive (contains lower but non-zero levels of nicotine), contain other unknown chemicals/substances, prone to tampering and misuse

65
Q

What are the alternatives to cigarettes?

A
  • E-cigarettes

- Marijuana

66
Q

What are the issues associated with marijuana use?

A

Changes in adolescent brain structure

General cognitive impairment and poorer performance in school

Health Psych (10 decks)

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