The Psychology of Eating: From Healthy to Disordered Behavior

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282 An Integrated Model of Diet



  • Food results in a conflict between eating food and denying food as a
    means to remain thin.

  • Food results in a conflict for the providers between offering unhealthy
    food, which is often desired the most, and healthy food, which can be
    rejected.

  • Eating disorders can be seen as an expression of gender-related conflicts
    between conforming to a traditional gender role or adopting a more
    modern gender identity.

  • Eating disorders can be seen as resulting from conflicts concerning ident-
    ity in terms of being either dependent or independent, or a child or adult.

  • Eating disorders can be seen as reflecting a conflict over space in terms
    of being small or taking up social space.

  • Eating disorders may be an expression of conflict avoidance with the
    family and function as a way to maintain the status quo.


Gender

Many aspects of eating behavior are gender related. At times gender issues
can contribute to eating-related problems. Gender differences also high-
light some of the mechanisms central to eating behavior.



  • Women are the main providers of food for the family.

  • Gender is central to many of the conflicts surrounding food, such as
    health versus pleasure, eating versus denial, and guilt versus pleasure.

  • Women are portrayed differently from men in the media, with a greater
    emphasis on their bodies and less emphasis on their faces.

  • Women show more body dissatisfaction than men, and size is more
    important to women’s self-esteem than it is to men’s.

  • Women’s body dissatisfaction mainly leads to dieting, whereas men take
    up exercise.

  • Obesity is related to ill health, particularly if the fat is located around
    the abdomen. Most women’s fat is located around their thighs and
    bottom, which has less serious health implications.

  • The large majority of individuals with either anorexia or bulimia are women.

  • The ways in which women are expected to look and behave may lead
    to weight loss and food avoidance being reinforced by others, thereby
    perpetuating disordered eating.

  • A sociocultural model of eating disorders focuses on why it is so gender
    specific, and highlights a conflict over gender identity as core.

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