I can only assume that with the abundance of information that is at our fingertips today, we are quite aware of what is good food and what is bad! We know a diet of natural foods; meat, fish, vegetables, fruit and wholegrain foods are far better for us than a diet comprised of confectionary items loaded with sugar and fast food soaked in oil washed down with a fizzy drink, and yes that includes ‘diet’ drinks. We know smoking is bad for us, that too much sitting down can kill us and that we are currently fighting an uphill battle with regard to the obesity and diabetes epidemic.
Despite this, many continue to maintain the same day to day dietary and physical activity habits. With this in mind, questions circulate – what is it that urges you to consume food that negatively impacts upon your health even though you have the choice? Why does your food shop remain the same despite you hoping for physical change? Why do you decide that a 6.00a.m. rise for the gym is too early even though your day is predominantly sedentary? The answers here are without a doubt a multi-factorial that involve a range of issues including money, environment, facilities, capabilities, knowledge, commercialisation and availability to name a few. These factors relate to the more socio-economic aspects that are involved in the choosing of foods and in the participation in physical activity. The purpose of this article is to focus on the psychology of food choice; what is happening within one self that allows these choices to be made with a focus on mood, emotions and cravings in relation to food consumption.
Mood
Mood is characterized as a psychological arousal state lasting at least several minutes and usually longer, with dimensions that relate to energy, tension and pleasure (Reid and Hammersley, 1999). Food can alter mood that is present and occurring both before and after its consumption. When hungry it is known that individuals are irritable and where food is ingested mood reaches a point of satiety, calmness, lethargy and sometimes a sleepy state. When mood and food consumption was randomly monitored over a week a ten varying time points throughout each day, eating a meal was more likely to elicit a positive mood than a negative one, at least in the short term (Macht et al., 2004). Therefore reaching a positive mood may be the motivation for certain food consumption.
Habit
The majority of people are very habitual in their food choice, portion size and timing of meals Due to this; people have adopted a set of beliefs and expectations about the impact their dietary habits will have on them. Because of this, often times, this can affect physiological change where habit is challenged i.e. during periods of dieting. The effect of meal size on mood appears inconclusive while Gibson and Green (2002) state that meal size has little impact on mood unless too little is eaten. Macht, (1996) found that a larger meal prevented deterioration in mood in people being stressed by noise. With that, ‘breaking the habit’ may be for some the greatest physical barrier to certain foodstuff consumption. This is an important element where kids are concerned; avoiding the development of a habit for example of consuming fizzy drinks with meals would prevent the development of expectations where meals are consumed. Imposing a healthy habit such as water consumption would be of more benefit.
What is happening in the brain?
Research shows that eating activates neural substrates in a similar mechanism to drug abuse – of course with a vast differentiating degree. The most evidenced neural substrates of reward are the dopamine, opioid and benzodiazepine/y-aminobutryic acid neurotransmitter systems. Endogenous opioid neuropeptides are released during stress and are known to be important for adaptive effects such as pain resistance. It appears they are also involved in motivational and reward processes in eating behaviour such as stimulation of appetite by palatable foods.
However it remains speculative to conclude that adults choose sweet, fatty, palatable foods for opioid-mediated relief of stress based on previously conducted trials (Shaham et al., 2000). In addition, ingestion of a sweet, fatty, energy-dense food repeatedly was found to down-regulate an opioid pathway where experimented with rats suggesting that an adaptation to chronic activation of this appetitive pathway (Kelley et al., 2003).
Similarly, over consumption of palatable energy-dense food may down-regulate dopamine-receptors since their availability in the brain (striatum to be specific), has been shown to inversely correlate with BMI (Wang et al., 2001). Along with this, a questionnaire measuring ‘sensitivity to reward’ was found to be less in obese than among overweight people (Davis et al., 2004). This finding from Davis et al. (2004) suggests that chronic overeating may eventually lead to a less sensitivity to reward, although this measure was also correlated to emotional eating.
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