Eating Behaviour

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What are attitudes to food/eating behaviour?
parental modelling, media and mood
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What does parental modelling say about food attitudes?
that we learn food preferences from our parents as they bring in the food
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How does the media effect what we eat?
makes us want to look like people in the magazines so we listen to their advice on foods to eat or not eat
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How can our mood determine what we eat?
When we feel anxious we are more likely to binge eat and when we are feeling emotional we comfort eat to make ourselves feel better
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What do attitudes to food link with?
Social learning theory
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State two weaknesses for the attitudes to food theory.
Gender bias- mainly focus on women and cultural differences- people eat different things depending on their culture
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One strength of attitudes to food is...
It can be supported by Meyer/Gast (surveryed young children to find a +correlation between peer influence and eating patterns)
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What are the explanations of the success/failure of dieting?
1. restraint theory (herman and mack) 2. denial (wegner)
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What does restraint theory suggest?
If we restrict what food or the amount of food we eat then we increase the chances of over-eating.
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How does the boundary model link to restraint theory?
When we diet we have a larger space between hunger and satiety which can cause us to feel hungry for a longer period of time therefore needing more food to feel satisfied
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What does the role of denial suggest about dieting?
When we try not to think of a food we think about it even more; Suppressions of thoughts of fatty foods when dieting makes us want to eat them more
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State two strengths of the success/failure theory?
1. This evidence has produced different anti-dieting campaigns that don't effect the body eg: slimming word 2. restraint theory is used as an obesity treatment therefore it must be effective
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State two weaknesses of the success/failure theory?
1. cultural biased- not all people find dieting easy it depends on your natural inclination 2. Evidence- most is reliant on case studies
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What is homeostasis?
The internal environment of the human body that controls the mechanisms that allow us to feel hungry or full
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What the two seperate systems the body has for eating?
LH- Eat VH- Stop
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What is the neurotransmitter that causes us to feel hungry?
NPY (neuropeptide)
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State TWO weaknesses of neural mechanisms.
1. evolutionary approach argues its not the body's mechanisms its the tastes of certain foods that make us hungry 2. The LH can also cause feelings of sex and thirst not just hungry
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State ONE strengths of neural mechanisms.
1. NPY has been found in the brains of people that over eat due to mass production of the neurotransmitter
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What does the evolutionary approach argue?
That it's the EEA and taster aversion that determine eating behaviour
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What is the EEA?
Environment evolutionary adaptation- early diets for humans were mainly animals and plants due to the high production of calories which shows fatty foods are adaptive
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What is meant by "taste aversion"?
Once we have eaten a food we don't like we wont eat it again (how farmers get rid of animals on their crops)
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What is one weakness of the evolutionary approach?
We cant eat the things our ancestors believed to be good due to them making us unfit for society
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What is one strength of the evolutionary approach?
1. It explains that early humans couldn't of been vegetarian- Through childrens preference of vegetables today, they pick the higher calorific ones and sweeter foods
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What are the clinical characteristics of bulimia nervosa?
1. binge 2. purge 3. frequency 4. body image 5. different to anorexia
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What are the psychological explanations for BN?
developmental factors and relationship processes
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What do developmental factors say about BN?
That people that suffer from it have experienced early trauma within life which makes them feel as though they are unacceptable to people around them. This causes them to associate fat as bad and thin as good
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What happens when people with BN feel worthless?
They become exposed to dieting programmes due to comments about their weight
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How can comments about BN be segregated?
Direct- family / Indirect- implied by the media
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What do relationship processes say about BN patient?
That women want to change themselves to the ideal preceptions of men so that men will find them more attractive
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What is the relationship processes idea?
Anxiety in attachment when in an intimate relationship
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What does the anxiety in attachment cause?
A desire for closeness but a fear of abandonment (HAZAN/SHAVER)
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What is a strength of the psychological explanations of BN?
Developmental factors take into account the cognitive aspects which means it can be treated using CBT- this has been proven successful but not for all cases
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What is a weakness of the psychological explanations of BN?
The research is biased= mainly focuses on women however homosexual men have been found to have higher incidence of eating disorders
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What are the biological explanations of BN?
Serotonin and the idea of nubility/sexual competition
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How does serotonin link to BN?
As BN and depression occur with each other it suggest it's due to imbalances in serotonin. Serotonin controls the bodies anxiety levels therefore when BN patients feel nervous they get more anxious and binge
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What are the problems with serotonin and BN?
That bingeing will cause the levels to rise however purging will cause them to drop therefore repeating the cycle
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What study explains serotonin and BN?
Kaye = comparison of serotonin levels in BN patients and control group, found abnormal levels in BN patients
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What is the sexual competition hypothesis?
Women developed disorders to be able to compete against other women that have evolved
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What are the two parts of the hypothesis?
Nubility and sexual competition
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What is meant by nubility?
The idea that males like a certain body shape in women with regards to their hip to waist ratio (WHR 0.7-0.8)
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Why do men look for the WHR according to ridley?
It's adaptive from our ancestors to avoid raising another mans child
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What is the WHR more commonly known as today?
Hourglass figure
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What is meant by sexual competition?
The idea that older women want to compete with more nubile women so they keep heir body image the same so that males cannot differentiate between older/younger women
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What is a strength of biological explanations of BN?
If serotonin is the main cause it should be able to b treated with SRRI's (Walsh proven this to be true)
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What is a weakness of biological explanations of BN?
AGEISM= only focuses on young women and girls therefore secludes old age. This is a problem as research has found old age to be common for eating disorders (Mangweth-matzek)
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What is another strength of biological explanations of BN?
It's universal meaning that BN is a female trait linked with physical appearence
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Other cards in this set

Card 2

Front

What does parental modelling say about food attitudes?

Back

that we learn food preferences from our parents as they bring in the food

Card 3

Front

How does the media effect what we eat?

Back

Preview of the front of card 3

Card 4

Front

How can our mood determine what we eat?

Back

Preview of the front of card 4

Card 5

Front

What do attitudes to food link with?

Back

Preview of the front of card 5
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