Discuss attitudes to food and eating behaviour (35 marks)
One explanation for eating behaviour is through Bandura’s social theory observing modelled from other people. Children may learn their attitudes to eating behaviour through observing parents and the satisfaction they receive and through this vicarious learning, they may come to model the behaviour themselves. Children will identify with their parents and their preferences and the satisfaction they receive and through this vicarious learning, they may come to model the behaviour themselves. Children will identify with their parents closely and research by Brown et al found a consistent correlation between eating habits of parents and their children around snack food intake, motivation to eat and dissatisfaction around their body. Parents also tend to shape children’s eating habits through their own as they control the purchase of foods eaten within the home. If parents purchase food based on their own preferences this will invariably affect children eating habits.
Social learning may also occur through the media with book and television highlighting different attitude which people observe and learn from. This may occur through celebrities people may identify with who may highlight particular food diets and the benefits gained such as losing weight for example. People may also learn about healthy eating this way and appropriate foods to eat. Macintyre et al found the media did influence peoples food preferences however this may then be limited by a person’s own personal circumstances such as income, family, culture or even age.
Cultural factors such as ethnicity may also affect eating behaviour. For example Khan et al found that white women were more prone to have body dissatisfaction and disorders such as bulimia nervosa than Asian or black women. Kennedy et al studied over 14,000 women aged between 18-23