Food Choice 49- Although the cognitive models have been applied extensively to
behavior, their ability to predict actual behavior remains poor, leaving
a large amount of variance to be explained by undefined factors.
In summary, from a social cognitive perspective food choice can be
understood and predicted by measuring an individual’s cognitions
about food. The research in this area points to a consistently important
role for attitudes towards food (e.g., “I think eating a healthy meal is
enjoyable”) and a role for an individual’s beliefs about behavioral control
(e.g., “How confident are you that you could eat a healthy diet?”). There
is also some evidence that ambivalence may moderate the association
between attitude and intention. However, there is no evidence for either
social norms or other hypothesized variables. Such an approach ignores
the role of a range of other cognitions, particularly those relating to the
meaning of food and the meaning of size, and at times the associations
between variables is weak, leaving much of the variance in food choice
unexplained.
Psychophysiological Models of Food Choice
The third theoretical approach to understanding food choice draws upon
a psychophysiological perspective and focuses on hunger and satiety.
Hunger is generally regarded as a state which follows food deprivation and
reflects a motivation or drive to eat. It also describes a more conscious state
reflecting a feeling or desire to eat (Blundell, Hill, and Lawton, 1989). Satiety
is considered the polar opposite to hunger: the motivation to stop eating
and the conscious feeling that enough food has been consumed. The
study of hunger and satiety is central to understanding food choice and
implicitly relates to both the developmental and social cognitive approaches
to eating described above. Hunger and satiety have been explicitly studied,
mainly with a focus on the psychophysiology of food intake. This approach
explores the interplay between cognitions, behavior, and an individual’s
physiology, and will be considered in terms of a metabolic model of eating
with a focus on the role of the hypothalamus, the impact of psychophar-
macological drugs and neurochemicals on hunger and satiety, the effect of
the senses on food selection, the effect of food on cognitions and behavior,
and the relationship between stress and eating.