Chapter 11 (Health and Well-being) Study Guide
I. What Affects Health?
1) Two approaches to health and illness
a) Biomedical model: Explains illness solely in terms of biological factors
b) Biopsychosocial model: Considers both health and illness, Determined by a
combination of biological, psychological and social factors
2) Health psychology: Concerned with psychological factors. Look at more than just
biology to explain physical and mental health
a) Social context, biology, and behavior combine to affect health
i) Causes of mortality: Daily habits contribute to all these causes
(1) Eating
(2) Drugs
(3) Exercise
ii) Health disparities: Wellness and risk factors are not the same for
everyone
(1) Gender: Women are more likely to die after open-heart surgery
than men
(2) Ethnicity: African Americans are more likely to have diabetes,
have a lower life expectancy
iii) Causes: Genetic variation: some health outcomes are linked to specific
genes
(1) African Americans have more chances of sickle cell anemia,
related to genes that are more common in African Americans
(2) Discrimination
(3) Socioeconomic status: affects people’s access to healthcare
(4) Cultural factors
3) Obesity and maladaptive eating habits
a) Body mass index (BMI):
i) Problems with the BMI:
(1) Does not take into account of age, gender, and muscle mass
(2) No close relationship between BMI and health outcomes, except
for people in the far end (very obese)
ii) BSI: Body shape index (can predict better health outcome than BMI)
b) Metabolic syndrome: Risk factors for poor health outcomes. Result from poor
nutrition rather than bodyweight
c) Overeating
i) Social situations: Soup study: Person with the refilling bowl of soup says
that they eat the same amount as everyone else when they ate 70%
more. People are likely to eat more when with others.
, ii) Memory: People with clinical amnesia will accept their lunch despite the
fact the just ate. If you can’t the last time you ate, you will be more likely
to eat more
iii) Body weight & social contagion:
d) Genetic influences: Genetics determines whether that person can become
obese, but environment determines whether a person will become obese.
i) Evidence: half the variability in body weight is genetic (BMI of adopted
children is more strongly related to BMI of their biological parents than
their adopted parents)
e) Stigma of obesity:
i) Overweight can be linked to depression, anxiety and low self-esteem
ii) Practice of fat shaming likely contributes to health and emotional
problems
iii) In many African nations, obesity is a sign of being upper class
iv) For industrialized countries, food are abundance and fresh, nutritious food
are more expensive
f) Restrictive dieting:
i) Set-point: weight in which your body sets
(1) affected by genetics and also eating habits
(2) It is extremely difficult to change the set-point
(3) Body naturally slows down metabolism when losing weight
ii) Yo-yo dieters:
(1) Have changes to metabolism
(2) Have a long term impact on the ability to lose weight
g) Restrained eating: Chronic dieters
i) Prone to overeating
ii) Relying on cognitive factors to determine food intake
iii) Seek out more rewards of food compared to nonrestrained eaters
h) Disordered eating: Tends to run in families (partly due to genetics), when people
have genetic predispositions for eating disorders, they will tend to develop the
disorder in societies with abundant food.
i) Anorexia nervosa: excessive fear of becoming overweight or fat
(1) Severe weight loss
(2) Most often begins in early adolescence
(3) Race and class are no longer defining characteristics
(4) Adolescent boys and girls are equally likely
(5) Causes a loss of bone density and about 15-20% with anorexia
eventually die from starving themselves.
ii) Bulimia nervosa: alternate between dieting, binge-eating, and purging of
the food they eat
(1) Tend to be average or slightly overweight
(2) Much more common in females than males
(3) Occurs secretly
I. What Affects Health?
1) Two approaches to health and illness
a) Biomedical model: Explains illness solely in terms of biological factors
b) Biopsychosocial model: Considers both health and illness, Determined by a
combination of biological, psychological and social factors
2) Health psychology: Concerned with psychological factors. Look at more than just
biology to explain physical and mental health
a) Social context, biology, and behavior combine to affect health
i) Causes of mortality: Daily habits contribute to all these causes
(1) Eating
(2) Drugs
(3) Exercise
ii) Health disparities: Wellness and risk factors are not the same for
everyone
(1) Gender: Women are more likely to die after open-heart surgery
than men
(2) Ethnicity: African Americans are more likely to have diabetes,
have a lower life expectancy
iii) Causes: Genetic variation: some health outcomes are linked to specific
genes
(1) African Americans have more chances of sickle cell anemia,
related to genes that are more common in African Americans
(2) Discrimination
(3) Socioeconomic status: affects people’s access to healthcare
(4) Cultural factors
3) Obesity and maladaptive eating habits
a) Body mass index (BMI):
i) Problems with the BMI:
(1) Does not take into account of age, gender, and muscle mass
(2) No close relationship between BMI and health outcomes, except
for people in the far end (very obese)
ii) BSI: Body shape index (can predict better health outcome than BMI)
b) Metabolic syndrome: Risk factors for poor health outcomes. Result from poor
nutrition rather than bodyweight
c) Overeating
i) Social situations: Soup study: Person with the refilling bowl of soup says
that they eat the same amount as everyone else when they ate 70%
more. People are likely to eat more when with others.
, ii) Memory: People with clinical amnesia will accept their lunch despite the
fact the just ate. If you can’t the last time you ate, you will be more likely
to eat more
iii) Body weight & social contagion:
d) Genetic influences: Genetics determines whether that person can become
obese, but environment determines whether a person will become obese.
i) Evidence: half the variability in body weight is genetic (BMI of adopted
children is more strongly related to BMI of their biological parents than
their adopted parents)
e) Stigma of obesity:
i) Overweight can be linked to depression, anxiety and low self-esteem
ii) Practice of fat shaming likely contributes to health and emotional
problems
iii) In many African nations, obesity is a sign of being upper class
iv) For industrialized countries, food are abundance and fresh, nutritious food
are more expensive
f) Restrictive dieting:
i) Set-point: weight in which your body sets
(1) affected by genetics and also eating habits
(2) It is extremely difficult to change the set-point
(3) Body naturally slows down metabolism when losing weight
ii) Yo-yo dieters:
(1) Have changes to metabolism
(2) Have a long term impact on the ability to lose weight
g) Restrained eating: Chronic dieters
i) Prone to overeating
ii) Relying on cognitive factors to determine food intake
iii) Seek out more rewards of food compared to nonrestrained eaters
h) Disordered eating: Tends to run in families (partly due to genetics), when people
have genetic predispositions for eating disorders, they will tend to develop the
disorder in societies with abundant food.
i) Anorexia nervosa: excessive fear of becoming overweight or fat
(1) Severe weight loss
(2) Most often begins in early adolescence
(3) Race and class are no longer defining characteristics
(4) Adolescent boys and girls are equally likely
(5) Causes a loss of bone density and about 15-20% with anorexia
eventually die from starving themselves.
ii) Bulimia nervosa: alternate between dieting, binge-eating, and purging of
the food they eat
(1) Tend to be average or slightly overweight
(2) Much more common in females than males
(3) Occurs secretly
