Psychological explanation of obesity

DESCRIBE AND EVALUATE A PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLANATION OF OBESITY

Eating Behaviour

Obese people may have different beliefs about food:

• They may have been brought up in a family often exposed to unhealthy food 

• Unhealthy food could have been used as a reward 

Schachter's Theory

Suggested that environmental stimuli can cause uncontrollable cues to eat for obese people

• Stimuli such as: sight, smell and taste of food

Spitzer and Robin

Examined 19 studies on eating behaviour

• Found that only 9 reported overweight subjects in the laboratory experiments ate significantly more than their slim counterparts.

It has been recognised that measuring food intake is problematic

• People change their food intake when being monitored or monitoring their own intake

• Laboratory experiments also make it difficult to generalise to the public

Negative:

Reductionist:

• Eating behaviour theory doesn't take into account other approaches e.g. biological
• This reduces reliability of the results

Uses cross sectional designs:

• Cannot determine cause and effect

Positive:

• Research can provide framework for developing interventions for obese people