Obesity 171and smell of food, and that such stimuli might cause overeating, the obese
were highly and sometimes uncontrollably responsive to external cues. It was
argued that normal weight individuals mainly ate as a response to internal
cues (e.g., hunger or satiety), while obese individuals tended to be under-
responsive to their internal cues and overresponsive to external cues. Within
this perspective, research examined the eating behavior and eating style of
the obese and nonobese in response to external cues such as the time of day,
the sight of food, the taste of food, and the number and salience of food
cues (e.g., Schachter, 1968; Schachter and Gross, 1968; Schachter and Rodin,
1974). Schachter and colleagues also developed the emotionality theory of
obesity. This argued that not only were the obese more responsive to external
cues, but that they also ate more than the nonobese in response to emotions
Figure 8.6 Changes in calorie consumption and obesity. (Source: A.M. Prentice
and S.A. Jebb, Obesity in Britain: Gluttony or sloth? British Medical Journal,
311 (1995), pp. 437–9, reprinted by permission of The British Medical Journal
Publishing Group.)
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