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

There atomic number 18 legion(predicate) explanations for the various attitudes of nourishment and eat behaviour. One of the main explanations is affectionate instruction theory. This emphasises the push of observing other people on our attitudes and behaviour. In cost of agnatic modelling, it is suggested that children go off acquire their attitudes towards forage by observing the behaviour of their parents. This is because the children are observing their parents ingest patterns and and then the parents are acting as eat component part models.Children pull up stakes nonice that their parents are rewarded when they enjoy certain provenders. The children will then come after these ingest behaviours as they will expect to overhear rewarded by doing so. Social learning theory therefore expresses the fact that children their solid food preferences as a topic of vicarious reinforcement. As expected, there is a signifi undersurfacet correlation amidst the diets of parents and their children. Brown and Ogden reported consistent correlations between parents and their children in terms of snack-food intake, take motivations and body dissatisfaction.This is support for amicable learning theory because it is showing that observation in the home during childhood is a significant factor in determining eating behaviour and food attitudes. As well as this, in an experiment carried out by Duncker (1938), children observed a series of berth models making food choices disparate to their own such as their mother, a friend, an unknown adult and a fictional hero. The findings showed that all the role models had an impact on the childrens succeeding food choices except the unknown adult.Therefore children are much belike to sample unfamiliar foods after they have seen a significant role model (particularly their mother rather than a stranger) eat the food. This therefore supports the social learning theory explanation because it shows that parental at titudes and behaviour is particularly an crucial part of the social learning process of food choice and eating behaviour. Media is a nonher factor that has an influence on our attitudes and behaviour towards food.The role of social learning is evident in the impact of media because throughout childhood, children are unresolved to widespread food advertising on television to involve food seem more attractive. This exposure can be effective in developing preferences, but unfortunately it can have negative cause because the advertised food tends to be high in fat and carbohydrates which can contribute to problems such as child obesity. Children observe role models in the media and due to vicarious reinforcement they are often motivated to imitate the behaviour that they see.This means that advertisements involving food as well as role models are definitely powerful in shaping peoples food preferences. The role of social learning through media effects is back up in a information by MacIntyre et al. , who found that the media has a major impact both on what we eat, and our attitudes to certain foods. When evaluating social learning as an explanation of attitudes to food and eating behaviour, there is quite a apportion of interrogation support. The importance of social learning in attitudes towards food was show by Meyer and Gast.They surveyed 10-12 year old girls and boys and found a significant prescribed correlation between peer influences and dis pointed eating. The likeability of peers was considered to be the most burning(prenominal) factor in this relationship. However, this study shows that eating behaviour can be learned through alternative role models other than just our parents. thus far though this study shows support, there are still upshots with the theory and research into social learning as an explanation of attitudes and eating behaviour.For example, most studies and research support use correlations as their main evidence. Although t hese correlations allow us to study links between uncertains, they do not prove that one variable causes the other (e. g. media causes disordered eating). There may be other, extraneous variables that can explain why the co-variables being studied are linked. These studies may therefore lack in internal/external validity. As well as this, the social learning explanation has been criticised for ignoring other factors that have influenced attitudes to food and eating behaviour.It has been recognised that attitudes towards food are clearly a product of oft more than social learning alone. For example, evolutionary explanations of food preferences suggest that our impulse of fatty and sweet food is a direct result of an evolved adaption among our distant ancestors over 2 million years ago. Therefore, we may not be able to completely rely on findings based on social learning theory as there could be many other factors that are contributing to our eating behaviour. Another explanation for our attitudes to food and eating behaviour is our musical mode.Low mood can often result in comfort eating, and low mood alike seems to influence stuff eating behaviour. Davis et al (1988) showed that low mood often preceded binge eating in bulimics. The same seems to apply in those with no known eating disorder. Students were asked to record their mood and eating habits over a two week period. Days that included binge eating tended also to be eld of low mood, but significantly, binge eating did nothing to improve mood afterwards. So although we may binge when down it seems to do little to make us feel better.This influence of mood on our eating behaviours is support by Garg et al. who conducted a study that centreed on the impact of variant assumes on mood and therefore eating behaviour. They observed food choices of 38 participants as they watched either an cheerful, funny film or a sad, depress one. Participants were offered buttered popcorn and seedless grapes thro ughout the films. They found that those watching the sad film consumed 36% more popcorn than those watching the eudaemonia film, but the upbeat film group ate a lot more grapes.Garg et al. cerebrate that people who feel sad or depressed are more likely to go for a snack that tastes good in order to escape their negative mood. Happy people want to extend their upbeat mood and so choose to eat healthier foods. Even though there is support for mood influencing our eating behaviour, it is unclear why a binge-eating episode as a result of low mood is reinforcing for the individual, especially as any benefit appears to be brief at best. many a(prenominal) studies have also reported a mood decrement in individuals immediately after their binge.In terms of IDA, gender bias is an issue with most studies focusing on attitudes towards food and eating behaviour. These studies mainly focus on only womens attitudes to eating behaviour, particularly in terms of body dissatisfaction and disordere d eating. However, a large number of studies have also shown that in men, homosexuality is a risk factor in increase of disordered eating attitudes and levels of dieting. This suggests that studies that concentrate only on women offer a limited view of attitudes of food and eating behaviour and their findings will not be reliable if they were to be generalised to the population as a whole.