Attitudes to Food - Plan

Discuss factors influencing attitudes to food.

factor one - health

AO1 outline - Pressure to have a healthy balanced diet - link to Crohn’s and coeliac disease - limited on food choice which also links to convenience and the issues with the availability of food and links to cost also 

AO2/3 Research evidence linked to factors - Turila & Pangborn (1998) - questionnaire data - women’s consumption of dairy - actual consumption was based more on liking than on health concerns. 

Evaluation of research - Questionnaires - social desirability bias making results low in validity. Only focuses on women making it difficult to generalise to men. 

AO2/3 Research evidence - Rapoport (2003) - growing interests in healthy foods, but more people are eating out and the population is becoming heavier 

Evaluation of research - Doesn't really have any empirical data that can be analysed and results are very conflicting - reduces validity. 

IDA - Biological approach - focuses mainly on illnesses that can’t necessarily be prevented (excluding diabetes) which limits food choices. Arguable when it comes to available, cost, e.t.c. 

Links to determinism - health forces some people to make considered food choices. 

Factor two - learning 

AO1 outline - Operant conditioning from parents - eat vegetables to get dessert. Parental attitudes and preferences. Association and also social learning through media and image. 

AO2/3 - Birch and Malin (1982) - 2 year olds to new food over 6 weeks. 1 food presented 20 times, 1 five times and 1 was novel. Direct relationship between exposure and food preference. 8-10 exposures necessary to shift preference. supports neophobia. 

Evaluation - study on children make result limited to a certain age group and lower population validity. 

AO2/3 - Meyer and Gast (2008) - 10-12 year old boys and girls - found a positive correlation between peer influence and disordered eating. 

Evaluation - correlations do not establish cause and effect - lack in reliability and make results difficult to generalise. 

IDA - Nature vs nurture - doesn't take into consideration the nature/biological side of the approach (illnesses or genetic make up) focuses on upbringing and social influences. Also deterministic because of the social influences’ inability to be changed.