BASIC EATING BEHAVIOUR AND PSYCHOLOGICAL DISORDERS

Mar 31, 2020

Most people who are engaging in eating behaviour either as a matter of survival or as a hobby (foodie) or as an addict to food, normally every day. That is, one has to make choices about what to eat, when, and how much.

In connection to our past, however, whose primary task was to seek out any food that would provide energy and nutrients, those choices have become more difficult nowadays. In modern societies in particular, food is abundant, cheap or costly , and available in a great variety.

Moreover, eating is a fundamentally rewarding behaviour, and is thus intrinsically linked to mood, emotions and psychology of that one person.Because of this, we felt that the creation of a new section about determining and causes of eating behaviour and mechanisms of its modulation is warranted.

The aim of core spirit in Eating Behaviour is to build knowledge for the understanding of eating behaviour by bringing together academics with different expertise, e.g., researchers investigating basic processes related to eating behaviour, clinical researchers examining the psychological, physiological, and nutritional aspects of eating disorders such as clinical psychologists, physicians, and other health care professionals. As still, this new specialty section is the first and only time in open access publishing with a breadth of scope on eating behaviour embracing various methodologies, and study opportunities

Especially when the humans are energy deficient, a complex interplay of physiological processes the signals in brain that food should be consumed, i.e., an individual feels hungry. When enough food has been consumed, these processes signal that consumption should be terminated, i.e., an individual can be high on food consumed

Nevertheless, this homeostatic regulation of eating is constantly challenged and overridden by the presence of food(anywhere). That is, eating can be triggered even in the absence of hunger or extended beyond Numerous factors are known that determine or guide eating behaviour in an automatic and implicit fashion.

For instance, eating may be initiated or prolonged by the presence of others, i.e., is influenced by social factors. Food choices and consumption are also strongly influenced or coaxed by many environmental factors, e.g., advertising, packaging, portion sizes, lighting, and many. As a consequence, constant monitoring and self-regulation of eating is necessary in order to eat healthily, i.e., to provide the body with the right nutrients. At the same time, eating healthily also means to be able to enjoy food without falling prey to over eating.

Due to OVER CONSCIOUS-NESS about food intake may cause a few problems :

Many individuals are able to do this successfully, yet some exhibit over-regulation of eating behaviour resulting in underweight and malnutrition. Cases of anorexia nervosa have been known for a long time.

On the other side of the extreme, permanent failures of self-regulation may result in overweight and obesity. As with anorexia, obesity is an age-old health condition ,but its prevalence has dramatically increased in the second half of the twentieth century .

While prevalence rates in western countries appear to stabilise, rates of severe obesity continue to grow and newly developing countries seem to record increase in disorders due to lack of care takers and awareness all over.

In most cases, obesity is the result of poor dietary habits – rather than compulsive eating binges – which contribute to a modest average daily excess of energy intake over energy expenditure. Some individuals, however, show regular binge eating which is defined as consuming large amounts of food over a discrete period of time with a sense of lack of control over eating, and which is associated with marked over stress. Regulating of binge eating disorder (BED) is increased in obese individuals, but not all patients with BED are necessarily obese. Furthermore, there are some individuals who engage in regular binge eating but use compensatory behaviours like vomiting/ nausea to prevent weight gain. Hence, patients with bulimia nervosa (BN) are mostly normal-weight

Unlike anorexia and obesity, BED, and BN have been first described in the twentieth century but their research history yet encompasses several decades. Both eating disorders and obesity involve medical complications and are marked by psychological distress and co-morbid mental disorders , of which mood and anxiety disorders are the most prevalent . Therefore, it is of no surprise that there are numerous scientific journals, which are devoted to publishing research on the etiology and treatment of those disorders.

In addition to eating disorders and obesity, there are a vast number of eating behaviours that deserve scientific scrutiny and discussion. For instance, there are some problematic eating behaviours that are not included in the current diagnostic manuals, but are continuously debated in terms of their clinical relevance. e.g., night eating, orthorexia or food addiction.

Moreover, there is an array of eating behaviours that do not reflect disordered eating per se, but nonetheless seem to be associated with occasional overeating and moderate overweight, e.g., restrained or emotional eating. Accordingly, it has been observed by researches from 2011(link in REFERENCES). that some eating behaviours can be mapped onto a continuum ranging from normal to disordered eating. This eating methodology psychology will help a lot of people to stick to their diet without catching up to a dietary/psychological disorders

Thus, we encourage researchers to break away from isolated, categorical views on normal vs. disordered eating, homeostatic vs. hedonic concepts, or physiological vs. psychological mechanisms. We hope that core spirit in psychology/Behaviour will increase the awareness of a more comprehensive view on eating behaviour and advance our understanding of a behaviour that is essential for our survival as individuals and as healthy humans.

REFERENCES:

1.Disorders. Series: Oxford Library of Psychology, ed. W. S. Agras (New York: Oxford University Press), 180–205.

2.Overweight, and Obesity – Self-Regulation in a Food-Rich Environment, ed. W. Stroebe (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association), 59–92.

This article was submitted to core spirit for a specialty of users in Psychology.

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