2. Opening Discussions
• Why is it important to
understand eating
behaviour?
• What foods do you like
and why do you think
you like them?
• Would you eat a pig, a
dog, a frog, a snail or a
horse or a cow? Who
would? Who wouldn’t?
3. Factors influencing attitudes to Food
What factors affect what we eat, how much we
eat and where we eat.
• Learning and familiarity
• Culture
• Mood
5. Learning and Familiarity
Exposure to Food
• Evidence - Birch and Marlin (1982) introduced
2 year old children to new foods over six
weeks. One food was presented 20 times, one
10 times, one five times and one remained
novel. They found a direct relationship
between exposure and food preference.
Specifically they found that 8-10 exposures
were usually necessary before preferences
began to shift significantly.
6. Learning and Familiarity
Learning through Rewards
• Operant conditioning. Children rewarded for
eating food.
• e.g parents praising or eat your greens and
have a sweet.
7. Learning and Familiarity
Learning through Rewards
• Evidence. Lepper et al (1982)
• Pre school children were told a short story about either a little boy or a
little girl (depending on the child’s gender) who were given two new
(imaginary) foods called Hoop and Hule. In the non contingent condition
the participants were told that the mother in the story offered one of the
foods first and then the other i.e. they were offered Hoop and then
Hule.This was non contingent because the having one kind of food was not
contingent on eating the other.
• In the contingent condition the mother in the story explained that the
child could only have one of the foods if they ate the other i.e. “you can
only have Hoop if you eat the Hule.”
• The children were later asked which foods they would rather eat.
• The results demonstrated that there were no clear preferences in the non
contingent condition whereas in the contingent condition children
preferred the food that had been used as a reward i.e. in the above
example they preferred to have Hoop.
9. Learning and Familiarity
Social Learning
• Evidence- Birch et al (1980) Used peer modelling
to change children’s preference for vegetables.
On four consecutive days, the children
participating in the study were seated at lunch
next to children who preferred a different
vegetable to themselves. By the end of the
study, the children showed a definite shift in their
vegetable preference. This preference was still
evident several weeks later. Those who initially
did not like peas at the outset did like them by
the end of the study.
11. Social Learning Theory
• Duncker (1938): Children observed a series of role models
including older children, a friend, their mother, an
unknown adult and a fictional hero making food choices
different to their own. The findings showed that all the role
models had an impact on the children’s subsequent food
choices except the unknown adult. Therefore children are
more likely to sample unfamiliar foods after they have seen
a significant role model (particularly their mother rather
than a stranger) eat the food. Parental attitudes and
behaviour is therefore an essential part of the social
learning process of food choice and eating behaviour. This
supports the behaviourist Social Learning explanation of
parental influence.
12. Learning and Familiarity
Social Learning
• Evidence - Olivera et al (1992) reported a clear
relationship between mother’s food intake for
most nutrients and their pre-school children.
They suggested that parents could be targeted
to try to improve children’s diets.
13. Culture
• Impact of class, income, religion, ethics,
ethnicity and geography on what we eat.
• In groups discuss and come back with one
example of each of the above
14. Culture - Research
S Dindyal, S Dindyal. How Personal
Factors, Including Culture And Ethnicity, Affect
The Choices And Selection Of Food We Make.
The Internet Journal of Third World Medicine.
2003 Volume 1 Number 2.
15. Culture - Research
• Newmark-Sztainer et al (2003) found that
frequency of eating meals as a family was
positively correlated with intake of
fruit, vegetables, grains and calcium rich
foods. This suggests that those cultures
that normalise eating together have an
important impact on the development of a
child’s attitude towards healthy diets.
16. Culture - Research
• Young and Nestle (2002) conducted a survey of take away
foods sold by chain restaurants. They found that portion
sizes had increased substantially from those served in the
past, in particular fries, burgers and drinks were two to five
times larger than when the items were originally marketed.
This has obviously led to an increase in calorie intake – as
much as 97Kcal per burger! Many researchers have found
that larger portions influence children’s eating behaviour by
promoting their intake of food. Clearly therefore cultures
that do not promote ‘oversizing’ may not choose to eat
such large portions, whilst those cultures that do promote
it may inadvertently increase portion size.
17. Culture - Research
• Leshem (2009) Compared the diets of ethnic
communities living close to each other in
Israel with equal access to shops and food. In
the Muslim community intake of
carbohydrates was twice that of the Christian
community.
• These findings show that cultural influences
on diet are profound and exist even when
there is equal access to the same foods.
18. Mood
• How does Mood influence eating?
Discussion – How does your Moodle affect
what you eat?
19. Mood - research
• Stone and Brownell (1994) Recorded daily
records of stress and eating patterns of 158
students for 84 days and reported that eating
less was the predominant response to stress.
• Oliver and Ward (1999) Assessed student’s
perceptions of the relationship between stress
and snacking. 73% of respondents stated that
stress increased their snacking and decreased
their consumption of meals.
20. Mood - Research
• Cools et al (1992): They discovered that stress only
triggered increased eating in people who were already
dieting. This suggests that stress only seems to trigger
eating in susceptible individuals.
• However, Conner et al (1999) studied the link between
daily hassles and snacking in students who completed
food diaries for a week. The results showed a link
between snacking and stress, with no differences in
relation to whether they were dieting. This goes
against the individual differences model because their
vulnerability did not make them eat more when
stressed.
21. Mood - Research
• Wolff et al (2000) investigated differences
between 20 female binge eaters and 20 female
normal eaters focusing on daily, self-reported
measures of mood, coping and eating behaviour
over a three week period. It was found that the
binge group reported more stress and negative
moods but that their stress levels were similar on
binge and non-binge days, whereas negative
mood states were more apparent on binge days.
This suggests that negative mood is more
influential to our eating behaviour than stress.
22. Mood - Research
• Stress and eating
• Stress reduces food intake? Laboratory studies
have found that participants eat less when
stressed (Willenbring et al, 1986), and this was
also demonstrated with marines during combat
situations (Popper et al, 1989).
• Stress increases food intake? A naturalistic study
of stress at work concluded that periods of high
workload were associated with greater intakes of
energy, particularly saturated fats and sugar.
(Wardle et al, 2000).
