Eating Behaviour and Eating Disorders

What the resources cover

The unit follows the usual run of eating behaviour topics. Several mind maps called Eating Behaviour pull the whole topic onto one page, with branches for attitudes to food, neural mechanisms, evolutionary explanations, dieting and anorexia nervosa.

• Attitudes to food: social learning and parental modelling, including Brown & Ogden on parent and child snacking.
• Dieting: restraint theory and the role of denial, plus the point that 89% of UK women have dieted (Klesges et al., 1987).
• Anorexia nervosa: symptoms such as amenorrhoea and a BMI below 18.5, and biological explanations including serotonin levels.
• Other disorders: maps on bulimia nervosa and obesity, both biological and psychological.

Where to start

Begin with a broad map such as Eating Behaviour to see the shape of the topic. Then move to one theme at a time. The mind map Success and failure of dieting and the flashcard deck Evolutionary Explanations of Food Preference are good single-topic starting points.

Using quizzes and maps together

Read a map, then test yourself. The quizzes Attitudes to Food AO1 and Success and Failure of Dieting AO1 check the descriptive points. Where an answer is shaky, go back to the matching branch and rebuild it from memory.

For evidence, the flashcard deck on Guardia et al. (2012) walks through aim, procedure, results and conclusions. There is also a quiz on Powell and Khan (1995). Notes such as neural mechanism ESSAY show how an extended answer can be shaped.

Where it sits

This unit belongs to the Psychopathology and Treatment strand of Psychology. Most resources are aimed at secondary level, with a quarter at university level, such as the quizzes on eating disorders paragraphs.

Open a map or deck that suits you, and use it as a base for your own notes.