Attitudes to food

Health

Different dietary conditions impact the types of foods people can consume.

Crohn's - 
- Inflammatory bowel syndrome
- 115,000 in the UK
- Avoid gluten, dairy, raw fruit & veg, dairy, fatty and fried foods, alcohol, caffeine

Coeliac- 
- 1 in 100 worldwide
- Small intestine
- No gluten because it can't be digested

Diabetes 
- 3.3 million diagnosed in the UK
- 590,000 have it and don't know
- Struggle with glucose and try not to consume high sugar foods

- Another factor that influences people's eating behaviour is the desire to eat foods that are regarded as nutritious and to avoid ones that have been labelled unhealthy.
- Education campaigns advise us to eat a diet that is low in fat and salt, high in carbohydrates and includes 5 portions of fruit and veg.
- Convenience and effort
- Availability
- Cost
- Health information & media

Research 
- Rapopori (2003) 
- Tuorila & Pangborn (1988) 
- Steptoe et al (1995) 

Learning 

Neophobia is a basic survival mechanism which tends to decrease with age. Experience and familiarity increase food preference. 

Operant Conditioning 

- Direct reinforcement from parents is used, commonly by reward e.g. 'eat your greens and you can have pudding'.
- This doesn't usually work because it increases desire for reward foods and decreases liking of non-preffered foods.

Parental Attitudes and food preference (parental modelling) 

- Mother provides food for child, therefore, the mother's attitude will affect the child's preference.
- If the mother is concerned by nutrition, she will work harder to give her child a balanced diet.
- Parents are key role models for children.
- When children reach school, peers become important.

Associative learning: classical conditioning 

- There may be aspects of the environment, specific behaviours or even food that impacts on what we eat.
- We can associate foods with physiological consequences like being ill.

Social Learning theory

- Learning through observation and vicarious reinforcement.
- Peers and parents model behaviour.
- Media models behaviour.

Media

- Magazines and TV influence.
- Makes foods look more appealing through advertising.


Research:
- Birch & Malin (1982) 
- Meyer and Gast (2008)