Discuss attitudes towards food and/or eating behaviour (24 marks) Essay

There are plenty of explanations intended for the different attitudes of foodstuff and eating behaviour.

One of the primary explanations can be social learning theory. This kind of emphasises the effect of seeing other people upon our attitudes and actions. In terms of parental modelling, it is suggested that kids can acquire their attitudes towards foodstuff by seeing the actions of their parents.

This is because the kids are watching their parents eating patterns and therefore the mom and dad are acting since eating function models. Kids will notice that their parents are rewarded when they enjoy particular foods. The children will then imitate these eating behaviors as they will certainly expect to acquire rewarded in so doing. Social learning theory as a result expresses the truth that children their meals preferences because of vicarious reinforcement. As expected, we have a significant relationship between the diet plans of parents and the children.

Brown and Ogden reported regular correlations among parents and their children in terms of snack-food consumption, eating motives and physique dissatisfaction. This is support intended for social learning theory since it is showing that observation in your home during the child years is a significant factor in determining eating actions and food attitudes. And this, within an experiment completed by Duncker (1938), children noticed a series of role models making food options different to their own such as: their very own mother, a buddy, an unknown adult and an imagined hero.

The findings demonstrated that all the role versions had an impact on the children’s subsequent foodstuff choices besides the unfamiliar adult. Consequently children are more likely to sample new foods as soon as they have seen a substantial role version (particularly their mother rather than stranger) eat the food. This therefore helps the social learning theory explanation since it shows that parent attitudes and behaviour is very an essential area of the social learning process of meals choice and eating behaviour. Media is yet another factor that has an effect on each of our attitudes and behaviour toward food.

The role of social learning is evident in the impact of media because throughout years as a child, children are encountered with widespread food advertising on television to make meals seem more desirable. This direct exposure can be successful in developing preferences, yet unfortunately it might have unwanted side effects because the advertised food is usually high in fat and carbohydrates which can lead to problems including child weight problems. Children notice role designs in the mass media and due to vicarious encouragement; they are often determined to imitate the behaviour that they find. This means that advertising involving meals as well as part models are definitely powerful in shaping people’s food choices.

The part of social learning through media results is recognized in a examine by MacIntyre et ing., who located that the multimedia has a significant impact when playing what we eat, and our attitudes to certain foods. When considering social learning as an explanation of thinking to foodstuff and consuming behaviour, there is certainly quite a lot of exploration support. The value of sociable learning in attitudes toward food was demonstrated by simply Meyer and Gast.

They surveyed 10-12 year old girls and boys and found an important positive relationship between peer influences and disordered consuming. The likeability’ of colleagues was considered to end up being the most important element in this relationship. However , this study demonstrates eating behavior can be discovered through substitute role types other than only our parents. Even though this kind of study reveals support, there are still issues with the idea and exploration into sociable learning because an explanation of attitudes and eating conduct.

For example , the majority of studies and research support use correlations as their primary evidence. Though these correlations allow all of us to study backlinks between parameters, they do not prove that one changing causes the other (e. g. mass media causes disordered eating). There might be other, extraneous variables that may explain why the co-variables being researched are associated. These studies may as a result lack in internal/external validity. As well as this kind of, the sociable learning justification has been criticised for disregarding other factors which have influenced perceptions to food and consuming behaviour.

It is recognised that attitudes toward food will be clearly an item of much a lot more than social learning alone. For instance , evolutionary answers of food preferences claim that our liking of fatty and nice food is actually a direct response to an progressed adaptation between our faraway ancestors over 2 , 000, 000 years ago. Therefore , we may not be able to completely rely on findings based upon social learning theory because there could be many other factors which have been contributing to the eating conduct.

Another description for each of our attitudes to food and eating behavior is each of our mood. Low mood can frequently result in comfort eating, and low feeling also seems to influence over eating behaviour. Davis et approach (1988) showed that low mood generally preceded over eating in bulimics. The same generally seems to apply in those with zero known eating disorder. Students were asked to record their very own mood and eating habits over a two week period.

Days that included binge eating tended likewise to be times of low feeling, but significantly, binge eating did nothing to improve mood soon after. So although we may binge when straight down it seems to accomplish little to make us feel better. This affect of feeling on the eating behaviours is maintained Garg et al. who conducted a report that aimed at the impact of various films about mood and for that reason eating behaviour. They noticed food choices of 38 members as they watched either a cheerful, funny film or a sad, depressing one particular. Participants had been offered buttered popcorn and seedless grapes throughout the videos.

They identified that those viewing the unhappy film used 36% more popcorn than those watching the upbeat film, but the positive film group ate a lot more grapes. Garg et al. concluded that people who feel miserable or stressed out are more likely to select a snack that tastes good in order to break free their bad mood. Cheerful people wish to extend all their upbeat disposition and so want to eat more healthy foods. Even though there is support for feeling influencing our eating behaviour, it is uncertain why a binge-eating episode as a result of low mood is definitely reinforcing to get the individual, especially as any profit appears to be simple at best. Many studies have also reported a mood decrement in individuals soon after their overindulge.

In terms of IDA, gender tendency is a concern with the majority of studies focusing on attitudes towards food and eating actions. These research mainly focus on only women’s attitudes to eating behaviour, particularly in terms of body discontentment and disordered eating. Nevertheless , a large number of studies have also demonstrated that in men, homosexuality is a risk factor in development of disordered eating attitudes and levels of diet.

This suggests that studies that concentrate just on ladies offer a limited view of attitudes of food and eating conduct and their studies will not be reliable if we were holding to be generalised to the populace as a whole.