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

There are numerous explanations for the unlike attitudes of viands and ingest demeanor. One of the principal(prenominal) explanations is tender skill possible action. This emphasises the strike of notice otherwise masses on our attitudes and behaviour. In name of p take inrnal modelling, it is suggested that children plenty acquire their attitudes towards viands by observing the behaviour of their parents. This is because the children are observing their parents fuck off patterns and on that pointfore the parents are performing as consume office staff models.Children leave notice that their parents are rewarded when they enjoy definite food for thoughts. The children leave alone then imitate these have behaviours as they will expect to kick the bucket rewarded by doing so. Social learn opening then expresses the fact that children their food preferences as a result of secondary reinforcement. As expected, there is a real coefficient of correlation bet ween the diets of parents and their children. Brown and Ogden account consistent correlations between parents and their children in terms of snack-food intake, alimentation motivations and body dissatisfaction.This is support for brotherly teaching system because it is showing that observation in the home during childhood is a earthshaking factor in determining consume behaviour and food attitudes. As swell as this, in an experiment carried prohibited by Duncker (1938), children conserved a series of usance models making food prizes different 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 jar on the childrens subsequent food choices that the unknown adult.Therefore children are much than(prenominal) belike to sample unfamiliar foods afterward they have seen a significant role model (particularly their mother rather than a stranger) eat the food. This thence supports the am ic equal discipline theory explanation because it shows that parental attitudes and behaviour is especially an essential part of the social learning process of food choice and ingest behaviour. Media is another factor that has an cast on our attitudes and behaviour towards food.The role of social learning is evident in the impact of media because without childhood, children are exposed to far-flung food advertising on video destroying to make food seem more attractive. This exposure can be efficacious in developing preferences, however alas it can have detrimental personal effects because the advertised food tends to be broad(prenominal) in fat and carbohydrates which can make for to problems such as child obesity. Children observe role models in the media and due to vicarious reinforcement they are often move 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 prefer ences. The role of social learning through media effects is supported in a hear 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 alimentation behaviour, there is quite a lot of seek support. The importance of social learning in attitudes towards food was demonstrated by Meyer and Gast.They surveyed 10-12 socio-economic class old girls and boys and found a significant positive correlation between associate casts and unranked consume. The likeability of peers was considered to be the intimately essential factor in this relationship. However, this study shows that consume behaviour can be knowledgeable through alternative role models other than just our parents. Even though this study shows support, there are still issues with the theory and look into social learning as an explanation of attitudes and eating behaviour.For examp le, most studies and research support use correlations as their main evidence. Although these correlations al base us to study colligate between variables, they do not nurture that one variable causes the other (e. g. media causes unhinge eating). There may be other, extraneous variables that can explain why the co-variables cosmos 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 output of much more than social learning alone. For example, evolutionary explanations of food preferences suggest that our propensity of fatty and sweet food is a direct result of an evolved adaptation among our foreign ancestors over 2 million geezerhood ago. Therefore, we may not be able to completely rely on findings found on social learning theory as there could be m some(prenominal) other factors that are contributing to our eating behaviour. Another explanation for our attitudes to food and eating behaviour is our sensory system.Low mood can often result in comfortableness eating, and poor mood besides seems to influence thrust 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 include binge eating tended also to be days of low mood, but significantly, binge eating did nothing to improve mood afterwards. So although we may binge when tidy sum it seems to do little to make us feel better.This influence of mood on our eating behaviours is supported by Garg et al. who conducted a study that focused on the impact of different brings on mood and therefore eating behaviour. They observed food choices of 38 partici pants as they watched either an upbeat, funny film or a sad, depressing one. Participants were offered buttered popcorn and seedless grapes throughout the films. They found that those ceremonial occasion the sad film consumed 36% more popcorn than those watching the upbeat film, but the upbeat film group ate a lot more grapes.Garg et al. reason out that people who feel sad or depressed are more likely to go for a snack that tastes trustworthy in order to escape their negative mood. Happy people want to go through their upbeat mood and so claim to eat healthier foods. Even though there is support for mood influencing our eating behaviour, it is unclear why a binge-eating succession as a result of low mood is reinforcing for the individual, especially as any benefit appears to be brief at best. Many 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 except womens attitudes to eating behaviour, particularly in terms of body dissatisfaction and disordered eating. However, a large number of studies have also shown that in men, homosexuality is a risk of infection factor in development of disordered eating attitudes and levels of dieting. This suggests that studies that concentrate only on women offer a limited spot 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.