Term Paper on "Unhealthy Eating Why People Eat Unhealthy Sociological Reasons a Literature Methodology Review"

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Unhealthy eating; why people eat unhealthy; Sociological reasons; a literature/Methodology review

Unhealthy eating; why people eat and overeat due to sociological reasons -- a literature and methodology review

As obesity continues to affect an ever-widening population of American, speculation and research has exploded to discover the reasons that people make poor food choices. Eating and food choices in general have a variety of complex causes -- psychological, sociological, and economic.

According to Nina Garg, Brian Wansink, and Jeffrey Inman (2007) of Cornell University, the reason that we eat too much as a species and as a nation is not a failure of willpower, but the way that the human animal is cognitively hard-wired to think about food. Their article from the Journal of Marketing "The influence of incidental affect on consumers' food intake," pinpoints affective states, or emotions as one of the root causes as to why people overeat.

Given the U.S. obesity epidemic, understanding how incidental affect influences food intake and whether its influence can be moderated through warnings or nutritional labeling is an important topic" (Garg, Wansink & Inman 2007: 194). People overeat for many reasons, including trying to manage their mood. They eat make themselves feel better when they are in a bad mood and they eat or do not eat in a different fashion when they are seeking to maintain a good mood. People are easily manipulated by external and internal cues that have nothing to do with hunger (Garg, Wansink & Inman 2007: 2004).

What the researchers call "incidental effect" are the emotions we as a species attach to food, emotions so powerful, Wansink and his co-authors assert, that they override our knowledge of what is healthy and a positive choice. Unhappy people are especially open to cues to overeat. "Happy people are more likely to try to maintain their positive state by refraining from consuming food items that might make them regret their consumption later (e.g., fattening or otherwise unhealthful food items). In effect, people in a happy affective state... avoid overeating both because they do not need food to feel emotionally better and because they do not want it [food] if the consequences could make them feel emotionally worse. This suggests that they should consume less of a hedonic, mood-altering product than sad people" (Garg, Wansink & Inman 2007: 195).

Happy people eat less, and they also make better food choices, in other words, they are more apt to select raisins than M&Ms to consume (Garg, Wansink & Inman 2007: 199). Both happy and sad people viewed buttered popcorn and M&Ms as less healthy than other foods, but happy people were far less likely to consume those foods. In short, knowledge alone is not enough when it is conveyed in a vague sense of 'health,' to override an affective state. In an experimental study, the researchers showed different movies, one happy and one sad, to volunteers, and monitored their consumption of popcorn. Participants consumed significantly more -- 28% more, up to 30 grams -- while watching the sad movie than while watching the happy movie (Garg, Wansink & Inman 2007: 197; 2002).

However, some hope emerges from the Wansink study -- "The presence of [specific] nutritional information," such as a calorie count, "for a hedonic product attenuates the influence of incidental affect on individual consumption levels, such that happy, sad, and neutral people tend to converge to similar levels of consumption," in short that intellectual forethought can thwart the effect that emotions have on mood provided it is not merely a general sense that popcorn and chocolate is 'bad' (Garg, Wansink & Inman 2007: 198). When given nutritional information about the product they are consuming in a movie theater or a restaurant, happy people tend to eat about the same amount as they planned to before, while unhappy people attenuate their consumption in comparison to their uninformed, unhappy counterparts (Garg, Wansink & Inman 2007: 2003).

Reasons to overeat are not simply due to emotions, however, that erupt due to internal, affective states. The environment also contains powerful cues to encourage unhealthy consumption. In his study, "Environmental factors that increase the food intake and consumption volume of unknowing consumers," Brian Wansink (2004) also notes that volume, or eating too much also has a role in the obesity epidemic. Regardless of what one eats -- too much of anything results in added pounds, thus eating too much, whether of soup, nuts, or M&Ms must be labeled as making an unhealthy choice. People, rather than relying upon internal cues, rely upon social cues Wansink calls "consumption norms" (Wansink 2004:458).

Responding to food-positive environmental cues means that people eat because they see food, because they usually eat when watching television or reading, or because others are eating (Wansink 2004: 458). They eat for reasons, in short that have nothing to do with hunger, or even their emotional state -- they eat out of route obedience to routine and habit. Thus, the ambiance of the room can influence consumption. For example, "dimmed or soft lighting appears to influence consumption in two different ways: by increasing eating duration, and by increasing comfort and disinhibition" (Wansink 2004: 460). Ease of consumption likewise affects quantity: "obese people were much more likely to eat almonds if they were shelled vs. unshelled" (Wansink 2004: 458). The pervasiveness of food in American society, where chocolate bars are available even at gas stations, and candy dishes dot the desks of offices, thus also has a role in the obesity epidemic.

Social situations and pressures likewise influence consumption, as people are more likely to eat in a relaxed environment than in a high-pressure job situation (Wansink 2004: 461). Although this may seem obvious, it can have profound implications, given as more people over consume food as a part of daily social interactions, this can create a ripple effect, encouraging others to consume more and more food. Distractions also make it easier to eat past the point of satiety, and the tendency of people to eat in their cars, or eat on the run thus is yet another sociological reason that people eat in modern America. Even the sizes of plates and bowls can encourage people to eat more or less, as many Americans seem to strive, even today, to become members of the clean plate club.

Wansink's research, such as a study where individuals consumed vast quantities from a subtly refilled soup bowl, simply because they wished to clean their plates, demonstrates that supersizing has a real effect. People are likely to eat more if they are given a large volume of food, regardless of their level of hunger. Moviegoers ate 38% more popcorn, even when it was day-old popcorn, when they were given more. The increased consumption effect is manifest across the board, no matter what the taste of the food. The idea that food is given special significance in our society as a fear of wasting food, however, does not explain another finding of Wansink: "why large packages also increase the use of less-edible products such as shampoo, cooking oil, detergent, dog food, and plant food. Nor does it explain why large packages of M&Ms, chips, and spaghetti increase consumption in studies where even the smaller portions were too large to eat in one sitting (Wansink 2004:467). In short, the perception of abundance leads to over consumption, when someone thinks that they are experiencing an economic 'value' by eating or simply by stockpiling more. This encourages them to use more, undercutting their supposed saving and expanding their waistlines.

But Americans can not blame McDonald's marketing technique of the supersized portion alone for over-consumption patterns. Variety, such as the stunning variety in healthy and unhealthy dining areas, from buffets to gourmet supermarkets can also encourage overeating of food. In one study, "different arrangements of structures… READ MORE

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