Discuss factors and attitudes influencing eating behaviour Essay

There are many factors and attitudes, which can have a major influence over an individual’s eating behaviour, such as mood, cultural factors or even their parents. Mood can have a major influence over an individual’s eating behaviour. It has been suggested that someone who over eats or under eats, may be suffering from Depression, and they use their eating behaviour as a way of masking their negative mood. It has also been shown that being in a low mood state can result in the desire to eat sweet or starchy foods. This is said to be because carbohydrates help the manufacture of serotonin (neurotransmitter associated with mood). Consuming high carb foods can also be used as a way of self-medicating an individual’s low mood. Verplanken et al (2005) conducted a correlational analysis on mood, impulse buying and the consumption of snacks. In this study, it was found that those with low self-esteem were more likely to impulse buy and consume snacks. It could be said that this is their way of coping with the emotional distress caused by low-self esteem. Therefore supporting the idea that an individual’s mood can influence their eating behaviour. However, as this was a correlational study, cause and effect can not be established. It may be that impulse buying causes a lowered mood. Social Learning Theory places emphasis on the impact that observing other people (i. e. our peers) has on our personal attitudes and behaviour. Our eating behaviours and attitudes to food, can be down to observing the behaviour of our parents. Parental attitudes towards food inevitably affect children because they control the food bought and served in the household. However, research has also shown an association between parents’ and children’s attitudes towards food generally. For example, Brown and Ogden (2004), reported consistent correlations between parents and their children, in terms of snack food intake, eating motivations and also body dissatisfaction. Our attitudes and eating behaviour can also be effected by influences from our peers. A study supporting this theory was conducted by Meyer and Gast (2008) who surveyed 10-12 year old girls and boys, and found a significant positive correlation between peer influence an disordered eating. The ‘likeability’ of peers was considered the most important factor in this relationship. One criticism of the Social Learning Theory is that it focuses solely on learning eating behaviours through observation of others. It fails to take into account biological and evolutionary factors which can also have a major influence over our attitudes towards food and our eating behaviours. Another factor which can have an influence over an individuals eating behaviour, is cultural influences. Research carried out by Bally and Kenardy, examined the eating habits of women in Australia, they specifically focussed on a group aged between 18 to 23. From this study, they found that the longer the women spent in Australia, the more likely they were to alter their attitudes towards eating in a similar way to women born in Australia. This is known as ‘acculturation’. This research strongly suggests that eating behaviour is learnt and is therefore linked to the behavioural model. However, similar to the Social Learning Theory, this fails to take into account biological reasons for eating habits or why some disorders such as Anorexia, can be heredity. As well as this, the research can also be said to be reductionist as it was only set in Australia therefore, the results can not be generalised to the wider population. Also, another criticism of this study, is that it is gender biased, as it only looked at women, rather than looking at the eating behaviours of both sexes. Further studies linked to this imply that, body dissatisfaction is a characteristic of white women rather than black/asian women. However, evidence from Mumford et al goes against this. Mumford et al found that bulimia was more common amongst Asian school girls than their white counterparts. This therefore questions whether the ethnicity of an individual plays a role in our eating behaviour.