1 / 27

Eating Behaviour

Eating Behaviour. This session focuses on what affects our eating behaviour: culture, mood, health, and diet. Biological explanations are considered as well as eating disorders. Eating Behaviour. Culture. Social Norms What is acceptable socially as food? Religious norms

lisbet
Download Presentation

Eating Behaviour

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. Eating Behaviour

  2. This session focuses on what affects our eating behaviour: culture, mood, health, and diet. Biological explanations are considered as well as eating disorders

  3. Eating Behaviour

  4. Culture • Social Norms • What is acceptable socially as food? • Religious norms • Hindu and Jewish rules • Learning • Parents and family; peers; social learning, conditioning • Schemas • Cultural norms

  5. Mood • Low mood • Carbohydrate cravings • Conditioning, social learning, serotonin, or endorphin rush? • Chocolate • Psychotropic effect? (Parker et al., 2006) • Sensory pleasure • Social learning or conditioning (Macht & Dettmer, 2006) • Caffeine • Increased positive mood (Smith et al., 2003) • Noradrenaline and cognition • Serotonin and noradrenaline • Low levels and low mood • Affects tastiness of food and hence amount eaten

  6. Health Concerns Healthy diet, food safety, food quality • UK government survey • Awareness of concerns a mismatch with eating behaviour • Obesity problem • Cheap food • Quality, availability, and advertising • Fruits and organic/higher quality food • Cost and availability • Trust in official information

  7. Dieting Success or failure? • 22% of UK adults are obese, 75% overweight • Lopez-Jimenez (2008) • Short-term success in dieting to lose weight • Environmental and biological factors • Psychological factors • Exercise

  8. Biological Explanations of Eating Behaviour

  9. Neural Mechanisms Hunger, satiety, and the brain • Hypothalamic eating control centres • LH and VMH, cortex and amygdala (de Araujo et al., 2006) • Insulin, leptin, and blood glucose level • Rosenzweig et al. (2002) • Lavin et al. (1996) • Horvath (2005 • Licinio et al. (2004) and London (2007) • Ravussin et al. (1997) vs. Johnstone et al. (2006) • PYY hormone • Batterham et al. (2007)

  10. Control of eating behaviour.

  11. Evolutionary Explanations of Food Preference • Foods high in energy and nutrients aid survival to reproduce • Cross-cultural preference for protein, fats/oils, sugar • Nutrient-dense and energy-dense • Adaptive to be omnivorous • Paleolithic diet (Eaton & Konner, 1985) • AMY1 gene distribution • Brain size

  12. Alcohol • Part of the human diet from the beginning • Scent aids finding ripe fruit • Dudley (2002) • Reduces cardiovascular disease, increases lifespan, source of energy • Consumption adaptive • Disinfectant nature • Ridley (1999) • Mu opiate brain receptors and endorphins • Alcohol and pleasure

  13. Eating Disorders

  14. Anorexia Nervosa Clinical characteristics: • DSM-IV criteria • Less than 85% expected body weight • Intense fear of weight gain • Maladaptive cognition about personal body weight • If female, amenorrhoea • 90% sufferers are female • 0.5% frequency in the West • Possible long-term serious physiological changes

  15. Bulimia Nervosa Clinical characteristics: • DSM-IV criteria • Numerous episodes of binge eating • Frequent inappropriate compensatory behaviours, e.g. purging • Frequency of the above • Maladaptive cognition about oneself • Bingeing and purging outside anorexia episodes • Significant increase in past 40 years in the West • Possible long-term physical damage

  16. Anorexia vs. Bulimia • Often starts during adolescence • Often follows dieting • Associated with anxieties and depression • Involves maladaptive thinking • Becoming common • No serious weight loss, within 10% of expected • Sociable, concerned with attractiveness, have mood swings, impulsive • Often starts during adolescence • Often follows dieting • Associated with anxieties and depression • Involves maladaptive thinking • Still rare • Serious weight loss, less than 85% of expected • Not so sociable or concerned with attractiveness, more self-focused, concerned with control

  17. Biological Explanations • Inherited maladaptive genes • Family and twin studies • Strober and Humphrey (1987), Holland et al. (1988), Kendler et al. (1991) • Environment and culture • Loehlin and Nichols (1976), Comer (2001) • Anorexia genes associated with perfectionism • Bachner-Melman et al. (2007) • Adoption studies • Possible under-diagnosis in males

  18. Neurochemicals Serotonin and bulimia • Low serotonin activity • Carrasco et al. (2000) • Serotonin gene predisposition • Monteleone et al. (2007) • Same serotonin transporter gene • In different bulimic types (Wonderlich et al., 2005) • Diathesis–Stress model

  19. Psychological Explanations Psychodynamic model Causes: • Repressed fears • Unconscious desire to remain a child • Lack of identity/enmeshed family • Ineffective parenting

  20. Cognitive Model Causes: • Maladaptive cognitions, e.g. about body shape and size, effects of food • Perfectionism in mothers • Low self-esteem of sufferers and mothers

  21. Cultural Model Causes: • Disorders much more common in the West • Rare in traditional non-Western cultures • Increase as Western culture introduced • Body dissatisfaction is greater in the West • Cultural pressures are greater in adolescent girls

  22. Evolutionary Theory Causes: • Eating disorder-type behaviour was adaptive for our ancestors • Bingeing when food was plentiful • Over-expression of eating behaviour genes • Anorexics would not drain food resources • Anorexia could demonstrate acceptance of defeat

  23. Obesity • Too much body fat • Linked to cardiovascular disease, hypertension, shorter lifespan • Increased in UK in past 25 years • UK frequency of over 20% both sexes Causes: • Over-eating, poor diet, lack of exercise, maladaptive genes

  24. Psychodynamic Explanations • Food is a symbol for love • Oral fixation of sufferers • Preferred foods resemble breast milk, i.e. sweet and creamy • Untestable

  25. Learning Theory Explanations Causes: • Maladaptive learning • Conditioning and social learning • Energy-dense foods given as rewards • Affluence and over-eating • Obese role models

  26. Environmental/Lifestyle Explanations • Obesity is a new disorder Causes: • General lack of exercise and calorie-rich diets • Children take little exercise • Faulty estimations of food intake and exercise

  27. Genetic Explanations • Family studies • Stunkard et al. (1986) • Ethnic group studies • Caucasian, Afro-Caribbean, and Hispanic • Twin and adoption studies • Plomin et al. (1997), Mark (2006) • Genetic variants identified • Henderson (2008)

More Related