Obesity

Abstract

Obesity has become a worldwide problem for which many preventions and treatments are invented to date. Many theories are also developed for explaining the etiology of obesity and each has its own significance such as psychological theories, physiological, social and biological. In this paper an early but most debated theory of obesity has been discussed. Scachter gave the Externality theory for identifying the causes behind overeating, which causes obesity, in late 60s. The paper discusses the developmental history of the theory and describes the postulates of the theory in detail. Further, the strengths and weaknesses identified by other researchers is also studied along with the implications on global obesity.

Table of Contents

Abstractii

Obesity4

Thesis Statement4

Introduction4

Discussion5

Schachter's Externality Theory5

History of Development6

Description7

Summarizing the Theory9

Strength of the Externality Theory9

Weaknesses of the Externality theory10

Global Obesity and External Cues13

References19

Obesity

Thesis Statement

“Eating behaviors are not only influenced by internal factors such as metabolic or physiological but external cues such as time, taste, presentation etc also affect the eating habits of people.”

Introduction

The excessive accretion of fats in the body is called obesity (Thomason & Shanley 2006; Loughrey, 2009). Large amount of salt, sugar, and processed flour made up the food and these ingredients makes the food utterly tasty. They are said to be the stress relieving components but is also said that more than providing any good, they do more harm to the body because offer a feeling of relief and fulfillment though it is temporary. Excessive consumption of positive energy balance is the reason behind obesity which means that individuals in take more calories than they use or burn (Mahan & Escott-Stump, 1996). Though it is said that in order to lose weight it is important to consume fewer calories than the body requirements but sometimes this phenomenon may also develop some physiological and psychological states due to which repressed eating and weight loss becomes difficult for many people to continue. Metabolic changes occur due to the reduced intake of calories which results in a decline of calories needed by body to maintain weight. Energy levels of efforts done by body for protecting calories also declines and makes activities and exercise difficult. This results in the change of taste perception hence making the calorically food more tempting (Herman & Polivy, 2005). It also imposes psychological effects due to which individuals become helpless to over eating in few situations such as alcohol consumption, consumption of calorically dense snacks and others.

Many obesity interventions often target the consumption of more calories, which is called over eating, than the body has burned. Researchers have explained over eating in number of ways. Few say that overeating is an alternate option for doping with emotions (Heatherton & Baumeister, 1991) others say that people over eat when their psychological resistance is down (Ward & Mann, 2000) and others believe that biological changes due to the restrictions on caloric intake also result in overeating habit. Much research have been conducted to explain the relation between over eating and obesity but Externality theory of Stanley Schachter (1968) remains the most ...