Evolutionary Eating Behaviour - Plan

Evolutionary Theory of Eating Behaviour 

Factor 1: high calorie and meat 

AO1: Ancestors had to consume high calorie foods in the EEA for energy and store this for when food supply is low. This trait makes them survive and then passes on to offspring. 

AO2: Gibson and Wardle (2001) - presented 4-5 year olds with lots of vegetables and they chose the highest calorific ones - potatoes and bananas - showing no taste preference, just calories. 

AO3 Evaluation: Children are difficult to rely on - could have been texture, taste or familiarity that caused these children to choose the specific fruit and veg. 

AO1: Preference for meat comes from decline in quality of plants. Hunter-gatherer societies makes meat a faster option to feed everyone. The amino acids are essential in intelligence development - more intelligent survive and pass on trait. 

AO2: Milton (2008) - without animals, people could not have evolved into an intelligent species and meat allowed humans to gather all of the necessary nutrients they needed to survive. 

AO3 Evaluation: Cordain et al (2006) argued that early humans consumed most of their calories from plant materials and were vegetarians. 

IDAs: Psychology as a science - difficult to falsify. Evolutionary approach doesn't acknowledge cultural influences and why some cultures don't look at high calorie foods - makes it culture biased. 

Factor 2: Taste preference

AO1: Sweet foods - Sweet foods are often high calorie. Also associated with ripe fruit which was rare and therefore a treat. Sweet foods are usually not poisonous. 

AO2: Bell et al - sweet food given to Eskimos who don't usually have it and it was not rejected - sweet food preferred universally. Also found sweet receptors in tongue. 

AO3 Evaluation - Only tested on Eskimos - lacks population validity and doesn't necessarily mean that all cultures worldwide would accept sugar due to their different upbringing and adaptions, e.g. Thailand prefer spicy foods. 

AO1: Taste Aversion - bait shyness, avoiding foods that have become associated with being ill. 

AO2: Garcia (1955) - rats who were made ill by radiation avoided foods they’d been fed directly before becoming ill. 

AO3 Evaluation: The use of rats isn't generalisable to humans despite similar brain structure - they do not have the same social pressures, behaviour or intelligence that humans have. 

IDAs: Deterministic - people have no free will, everything is decided by adaptive traits developed by early ancestors. Also doesn't take into account the social impacts of eating behaviour, although does touch on the behavioural approach with the bait shyness due an association being made. Food preferences, however, can also be influenced by other people.