A Guide to the Psychology of Eating Quotes

“Humans who continued lactase production were more likely to suffer when meat and plant material were unavailable. Genetic testing indicates that lactase persistence evolved separately among subgroups of Europeans and Africans, illustrating the strong environmental pressure for phenotypic processing of milk products based on cultural practices. In culture that do not practice dairy farming, such as many areas of Asia, lactase persistence is low.”
― Leighann R. Chaffee, A Guide to the Psychology of Eating

“Risks for escalation from disordered eating to an ED include the use of food to cope with life events or emotions, adherence to restrictive or fad diets, and negative self-evaluation based on consumption or body image.”
― Leighann R. Chaffee, A Guide to the Psychology of Eating

“Parental concern for weight and weight teasing within the family predict Eating Disorder symptoms over a 5 year follow up. These factors may be coupled with the modeling of eating disturbances by family members, which reinforce the thin ideal and subsequent body dissatisfaction.”
― Leighann R. Chaffee, A Guide to the Psychology of Eating

“Individuals who are perfectionists are more likely to comply with norms and to be critical of their own shape, and high trait perfectionism is a documented risk factor for anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa as it increases drive for thinness. Drive for thinness is notably predicted by anxiety sensitivity and poor interoceptive awareness, the ability to understand physiological and emotional cues within the body, critical to self-awareness in linking cognitive and emotional processes.”
― Leighann R. Chaffee, A Guide to the Psychology of Eating

“Symptoms like distorted body image and lack of recognition for the severity of malnutrition demonstrate deficient interoceptive awareness and tend to persist after recovery, highlighting an important consideration for treatment.”
― Leighann R. Chaffee, A Guide to the Psychology of Eating

“Given that chronic undernutrition can harm cognitive processing, researchers postulate patients with Anorexia Nervosa use a habitual, rule-based tendency to abstain from immediate rewards and select the larger, delayed option. In contrast, patients with Bulimia Nervosa show impulsivity, a deficit in self-regulatory control.”
― Leighann R. Chaffee, A Guide to the Psychology of Eating

“Individuals with Eds evaluate food and body related cues as emotional events and these events trigger dysregulated responses, including deficits in healthy coping strategies and use of maladaptive strategies. Emotional dysregulation and disordered eating worsen in a vicious cycle: engaging in disordered eating, such as restricted food or purging, provides escape from negative emotion particularly when it is stimulated from a food or body related cue, like shopping for a new workout clothing.”
― Leighann R. Chaffee, A Guide to the Psychology of Eating

“Reward-related contributions to Eds instate disordered eating and hinder recovery.”
― Leighann R. Chaffee, A Guide to the Psychology of Eating

“In periods of binge eating in both Bulimia Nervosa and Binge Eating Disorder, reward is augmented when eating palatable foods. The release of dopamine to code reward continues during compensatory behavior.”
― Leighann R. Chaffee, A Guide to the Psychology of Eating

“Generally speaking, adolescents, especially girls, with depression and anxiety should have limited exposure to body image messaging centered on weight, weight loss, and dieting that may generate behaviors with those foci and create or make worse depressive symptoms.”
― Leighann R. Chaffee, A Guide to the Psychology of Eating

“Perhaps eating and drinking provide distraction, stimulation, or meaning/purpose, which is supported by the finding that people eat exciting or enticing foods when bored rather than bland foods.”
― Leighann R. Chaffee, A Guide to the Psychology of Eating

“Humans who continued lactase production were more likely to suffer when meat and plant material were unavailable. Genetic testing indicates that lactase persistence evolved separately among subgroups of Europeans and Africans, illustrating the strong environmental pressure for phenotypic processing of milk products based on cultural practices. In culture that do not practice dairy farming, such as many areas of Asia, lactase persistence is low.”
― Leighann R. Chaffee, A Guide to the Psychology of Eating

“Among all children, popularity and acceptance with peers is a major protective factor against body concerns and disordered eating, whereas body-focused teasing from peers is a risk factor for binge eating and dieting. As a final comment, these relations are most prevalent in societies where media outlets, such as television and social media, are dominant.”
― Leighann R. Chaffee, A Guide to the Psychology of Eating

“Both childhood digestive problems and pica are associated with later bulimia, and adolescent girls who are high achieving and anxious are at greater risks for disordered eating. Family contention around meals and childhood self-control predict later adolescent consumption (e.g. binging or avoiding foods), with onset of puberty playing an additional role in risks for disordered eating. Physical body changed among girls, marked by spreading hips and adipose deposits, trigger body concerns at the same time that social comparisons heighten to foster unhealthy expectations and more attention to consumption.”
― Leighann R. Chaffee, A Guide to the Psychology of Eating

“Our body certainly learns from the signals associated with energy balance to adjust behavior: we respond to interoceptive cues to initiate eating when hungry, and food deprivation clearly increases food-seeking behavior in animals.”
― Leighann R. Chaffee, A Guide to the Psychology of Eating

“The bonus cookies in the grocery basket could be considered -irrational- as they require extra cost and effort to purchase and do not align with goals for a balanced diet, yet eating the cookies will generate a positive reward.”
― Leighann R. Chaffee, A Guide to the Psychology of Eating

“Eating behavior is predicted by consideration of immediate consequences, whereas exercising behavior is related to consideration of future consequences. Compensatory health beliefs are the expectation that engaging in healthy behaviors can compensate for unhealthy actions.”
― Leighann R. Chaffee, A Guide to the Psychology of Eating

“Another cognitive fallacy, -dose insensitivity-, also was observed among participants studied by Rozin and colleagues. Dose insensitivity refers to our tendency to evaluate a food as equally healthy or harmful, regardless of how much was consumed. That is, something is harmful in large amounts, it if often viewed as similarly harmful in small amounts. Dose insensitivity undermines moderation and encourages adoption of fad diets that rely on strict adherence to or elimination of foods or sometimes entire food groups.”
― Leighann R. Chaffee, A Guide to the Psychology of Eating

“In our current world, checking of cell phones is a commonly observed compulsive displacement act known to reduce anxiety. In situations where food or drink is available, eating and drinking could serve as a displacement act. It makes sense that, over time and with environmental support, these schedule-induced consumptions could become persistent, generalized habits. This process represents what many people report as -I eat when I’m bored-. Perhaps a more accurate descriptor is, -I eat when experiencing a compulsive need to so something during a period of minimal reinforcement-.”
― Leighann R. Chaffee, A Guide to the Psychology of Eating

“Since we are born with strong tendencies to be sensitive to others’ emotional expressions, we are less likely to consume foods when we perceive disgust in others as they consume those foods.”
― Leighann R. Chaffee, A Guide to the Psychology of Eating

“Since we are born with strong tendences to be sensitive to others’ emotional expressions, we are less likely to consume foods when we perceive disgust in others as they consume those foods.”
― Leighann R. Chaffee, A Guide to the Psychology of Eating

“Women are more likely than men to have higher disgust sensitivities, which fits with their greater sensitivity to smells generally, though this does not result un differences in perception or consumption. Other individual differences include proneness to mood dysregulation, like bipolar disorder and major depression, such that more intense and prolonged periods of negative affect -sadness and fear- are experienced.”
― Leighann R. Chaffee, A Guide to the Psychology of Eating