FAT LOSS – BEHAVIOURAL INFLUENCES: BEHAVIOUR MODIFICATION

Posted by admin on May 8, 2009 under Weight Loss | Be the First to Comment

Behaviour modification became the vogue, based on the theory that fat people are conditioned to eat in response to the ‘wrong’ stimuli, such as watching TV or being ‘bored’. Behavioural modification is centred on the notion that habits are learned patterns of behaviour that usually do not involve complex cognitive, or thinking processes. Change the response and the tendency to eat inappropriately (i.e. in the absence of body hunger signals) or to be inactive, will fade away.

In their simplest form, habits develop as an association between a stimulus and a response. Initially, a stimulus which initiates a response is known as an unconditioned stimulus (US) resulting in an unconditioned response (UR). This stimulus is then paired with a conditioned stimulus (CS) to give a conditioned response (CR). In psychological terms this is known as ‘classical conditioning’. Perhaps the best known example is the salivary experiences of Pavlov’s dog. Ivan Pavlov was a physiologist living in Russia around the turn of the century. He discovered, not so surprisingly, that every time he presented dinner to his dog, the dog salivated. Pavlov then paired the sound of a bell to the presentation of the food and found, after a while, that the bell alone was all that was necessary to cause the salivation.

Similar principles can be applied, in a very simplistic way, to humans. An example of a typical learned response to eat in modern society would be getting up from a chair to get something to eat every time an advertisement interrupts a program on television. The association between the advertisement and eating is a surprisingly simple connection, but the kind of thing that people do every day without conscious thought. This is similar to the habits formed in getting dressed, sleeping, working, driving a car, or the myriad of other activities that are carried out automatically during the day.

Examples of eating patterns that are conditioned include:

• eating at the same time every day whether hungry or not

• reading while eating (and thus getting hungry while reading)

• always finishing off everything on the plate

• eating crisps/peanuts with alcohol.

Examples of conditioned inactivity patterns include:

• driving to the shops instead of walking

• getting someone to get something for you rather than getting it yourself

• going for a drink instead of a walk

• sleeping in on cold mornings.

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