Social Explanations for Food Preferences

Children can learn about eating behaviours and food preferences through the processes involved in social learning theory: observation, imitation, identification and vicarious reinforcement.

14.1.1

Explanations for Food Preferences

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Evolutionary Approach to Understanding Food Preferences

Many food preferences can be explained through the human need to eat to survive. There are specific food preferences and behaviours that gave our ancestors an adaptive advantage in evolution.

Sweet foods

Sweet tastes are associated with foods that have high sugar concentrations and give you energy.
Love of sweet foods is universal, and even newborn babies show a preference for sweet tastes over bitter ones, as shown by Harris (1987). This suggests that there is a genetic explanation.
Dopamine, the pleasure-inducing neurotransmitter, is released when sweet foods are eaten. This likely evolved from mammals eating a fruit-based diet and reinforces the consumption of sweet food.

Fatty foods

Eating fatty foods was advantageous to early humans because food was not readily available and fatty foods are very high in calories, providing an energy source that could keep humans alive between meals.
This preference has not disappeared, despite the fact that food scarcity is no longer a problem for the majority of people, particularly in developed countries.
Dopamine is likely a reinforcer in fatty food preference.

Meat

Meat contains lots of nutrients that humans needs.
- E.g. red meat contains large amounts of iron.
Sherman and Hash (2001) found that meat dishes generally contain more spices than vegetable dishes (analysis of nearly 7,000 recipes from 36 countries). Spices were particularly prevalent in meat dishes from hot countries.
They suggested that the antimicrobial properties of spices stop bacteria and fungi from spreading through meat and spoiling it, particularly in warm climates where bacteria grow more quickly.

Taste aversion

When a food makes an animal ill, they associate that food’s taste to the feelings of illness. This is taste aversion, and helps the animal avoid that food in the future.
Garcia et al (1995) found that rats developed an aversion to saccharin when they were made ill through radiation exposure after eating it.
Although taste aversion is a learned response, it has an evolutionary basis.

Neophobia

Food neophobia refers to a reluctance to eat new and unknown foods.
It likely developed as an adaptation that protects animals from being poisoned. But, in some circumstances, neophobia is maladaptive and prevents people from consuming all the nutrients they need.
Children aged 2-6 show the strongest neophobia, but neophobia decreases as exposure to unfamiliar food increases.

Cultural Explanations for Food Preferences

Food has different meanings in different cultures, and many cultural factors influence our food preferences and eating behaviours.

Media influence

Adverts about food influence what people buy in the supermarket.
The eating behaviours of characters on TV also impact what people, especially children, choose to eat.
This happens via the mechanisms of social learning theory.

Context of meal

Cultural beliefs about meal-times influence not only eating behaviours but also food preferences.
What constitutes a ‘proper’ or ‘normal’ meal changes between cultures, where a meal of meat, carbohydrate and vegetables is the norm in the UK.

Cultural meal traditions

Many cultures place importance on large family meals of home-cooked food around a dinner table, and most families have their own traditions around meals.
There has been increase in takeaways and fast food restaurants in the UK over the last 20 years, and this is altering how and what people eat.

Religion

Food is a central component in many religions In some religions, fasting or abstaining from food is used to show devotion to God (e.g. Ramadan for Muslims).
Large feasts of food are central to celebrations in some religions (e.g. Christmas).
Some foods are forbidden in certain religions (e.g. Beef in Hinduism).

Individual differences

Although eating behaviours are influenced by cultural factors, individual differences play a key role in the extent of this influence.
E.g. healthy food choices (as measured by people’s responses to questions on Twitter) are significantly associated with the number of grocery stores in a nearby area but not the number of fast food outlets.