ATTITUDES TO FOOD

SOCIAL LEARNING
1. children acquire their eating behaviour by observing that of their parents. parents control the food bought & eaten in the house. studies consistently report correlations between parents & their children in terms of snack food intake & body dissatisfaction.
  1. study explored impact of social suggestion on children's food choices. observed role models e.g. friend, mother, stranger eating food choices different from their own. greater change in child's preference if the model was the mother or friend but no change with the stranger.
    1. suggests parental behaviour & attitudes are an essential part of the process of social learning with regard to the acquisition of eating behaviours.
      1. more supporting studies: survey on 10-12 yr old children found significant positive correlation between peer influence & disordered eating. Likeability of peers was considered most important factor in this relationship.
        study on mothers & daughters found best predictors of daughters' eating behaviours were the mothers' dietary restraint & their perceptions of the risk of their daughters becoming overweight.
        both show the importance of social learning from peers & parents in attitudes to food of children though it can be seen as much more than learning alone, through evolutionary explanation of food preferences it can be seen that preference for fatty/sweet foods is a direct result of an evolved adaptation rather than learning from role models.
2. media influences both what people eat & their attitudes to certain foods. many eating behaviours are also limited by personal circumstances such as age, income & family. people learn from the media about healthy eating but must place this into broader context of their lives.
CULTURAL INFLUENCES
1. body dissatisfaction & associated eating disorders are more characteristic of white women than black or Asian women. Study on women in Australia showed that for all ethnic groups, they reported attitudes & eating behaviour more similar to that of women born in Australia.
  1. studies have found that body dissatisfaction, eating disorders & dieting is more common for higher class individuals.
    1. survey on american adolescents cncluded higher class females had greater desire to be thin, & more likely to diet to achieve this, than their lower class counterparts. Another survey found that income was positively associated with healthy eating.
  2. IDA: studies concentrate on women's attitudes, especially in terms of body dissatisfaction & disorders. studies have shown that in men, homosexuality is a risk factor in developing disordered eating & body dissatisfaction/dieting due to gay subculture emphasising lean, muscular bodies. Studies only on women give limited view of attitudes to food & are therefore gender biased.
  3. research findings are inconclusive with studies finding incidents of bulimia is greater among asian girls than white counterparts & desire to be thin is greater among black girls.
MOOD
1. binge eating is a way of temporary escape from negative moods.
  1. one hour before a binge, bulimics had more negative moods than before a normal meal or snack. this relationship was also true for sub-clinical populations.
    1. when students recorded their eating patterns & moods, binge days were characterised by low moods but there was no difference in mood before or after the binge suggesting binging does not actually alleviate the low mood.
    2. there are problems with studies on different groups e.g. clinical, sub-clinical & normal, as we cannot generalise from one group to another easily, so degree to which these studies give universal understanding of causal factors in eating behaviours is limited.
  2. comfort eating study: participants watched either happy or sad films & offered either popcorn or grapes. in sad films, 36% more popcorn was consumed than the happy films & upbeat film group ate far more grapes.
    1. people who feel depressed go for snacks that taste good to give burst of euphoria. happy people want to extend happy mood & choose healthy snacks.
      1. suggests mood affects attitudes toward different food types.

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ATTITUDES TO FOOD

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	Created by diana.m1629 almost 10 years ago