Discuss the role of one or more factors that influence attitudes to food

Classical conditioning and reinforcement is another factor that influences attitudes to food and eating behaviour. The link between sweet foods and positive mood appears to have a chemical bias but would also become established through the principles of learning. Repeated pairings between sweet foods and pleasurable responses could result in people being conditioned to associate such foods with pleasure, which would be further reinforced by the positive consequences that comes with consuming such foods. Classical conditioning can also explain why people avoid certain foods when they are associated with unpleasant responses. Learned taste aversions develop when someone consumes food and a response nausea/sickness follows. This stimulus response association and lead to individuals feeling sick at the mere thought of that food. Consequently, the likelihood of consuming the food is reduced or punished in operant conditioning terms.

Another factor affecting a person’s attitude on food and their eating behaviour is emotion (Gibson (06) found that people who are stressed or depressed tend to increase their consumption of carbohydrates and fat within their diet. It is believed that the improved mood is linked to the role of neurochemistry. Certain foods are believed to lead to increased production of serotonin, which a neurotransmitter that is linked with mood (Gibson 06). Chocolate contains tryptophan, which is an essential amino acid for the production of serotonin. It has also been found that sweet foods increase the release of endorphins in the brain. There appears to be a link between the workings of the neurological pathways that comprise our reward system and feeding. Opiate drugs that operate in the reward system increased food intake and pleasure, while blocking the endorphin system has been observed to reduce motivation to eat. In addition, research from medical research council cognition and brain sciences unit has shown individual differences in the level of activity in the reward centres of the brain, when participants were presented with varying pictures of food stimuli. When pictures of sweet, desirable foods were shown there was a more pronounced response during fMRI scans (Beaver et al 06). Following this, participants completed a reward sensitivity questionnaire, which assessed their desire to pursue rewards. It was found that participants’ willingness to pursue rewards was proportional to the levels of neurological activity observed during scans. So it would seem that there are neurochemical processes that underlie the mood elevating properties of sweet foods, which might predict eating behaviours.

There have been studies to support the idea that emotion influences attitudes to food. Garg et al (2007) observed the food choices of 38 participants. One group watched a comedy and the other group watched a sad film. Both groups were offered buttered popcorn and seedless grapes throughout the films. The sad film group had 36% more popcorn than the funny film group. The group watching the funny film consumed the most overall though. This could demonstrate that people will choose a sugary snack when they are feeling upset as a kind of comfort food and that people in a good mood will opt for a healthier snack. These findings would therefore support that emotion is a factor that influences attitudes to food. In addition, Wegner et al (2002) had students record their eating patterns for 2 weeks. Binge days were characterised by generally low mood. Therefore, with the knowledge that emotion can lead to individuals eating lots of technically unhealthy foods there are some practical applications. This information could potentially be used by people trying to lose weight. If people were to be educated in the fact low moods could lead to them over-eating unhealthy foods they could either take extra efforts when feeling sad to do things other than eat, such as endorphin increasing activities such as exercise or doing things that they enjoy rather than eating sugary and fatty foods.

These factors are arguably reductionist. They seem to overlook many potential factors such as the role of cognition. Classical conditioning explains that a person may end up not liking a certain food due to them associating it with a negative reaction. Yet if this is the only reason why a person may not eat a certain food then how can it be the case that sometimes an individual may think they don’t like a certain food that they’ve never even tried? This could indicate that cognition may play a part in people’s attitudes to food. In addition, it could be argued that if an individual found that constant comfort eating left them with low self esteem and weight problems, these would be negative consequences that they would then associate with the fatty/sugary foods. Therefore by classical conditioning they would surely avoid such foods, yet studies supporting emotion as a factor would demonstrate that individuals, when in a low mood would always reach for such sugary/fatty foods. Therefore, this indicates that there could be other factors involved as an individual’s attitude to food seems a lot more complex than these simple factors seem to imply. In addition, there are clearly exceptions to factors such as emotion, as not every sad person comfort eats and even those who are not unhappy, still appear to eat fatty and sugary foods and have favourable attitudes towards them. This factor would therefore not be taking individual differences into consideration, therefore making it reductionist.

These factors, on the whole seem to be on the nurture side of the Nature vs. Nurture debate. The factor of learning that uses the Social Learning Theory is very clearly nurture based as it relies completely on life experiences. In the same way, classical conditioning can only take place after having experienced a reaction to a certain food, whether that be positive or negative. These factors would therefore be nurture based. Yet, on the other hand there has been evidence to show that an improvement in mood after eating certain foods is linked to neurochemistry, which ultimately is down to your genes. This would make emotion as a factor, on the nature side of the Nature vs. Nurture debate. In addition, it has been proved that our genetics can affect our mood in the sense that people with low serotonin can develop depression, this would serve as further support that emotion as a factor that influences attitudes to food is nature based.