Module 3: Research & Writing Across the Curriculum Final Draft

Obesity is a problem that is plaguing our nation, as well as the world. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), 39.8 million or 57.8% of American adults are overweight. Furthermore, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 300 million adults worldwide are obese. Even though obesity can be caused by biological factors, particularly genetics of hormonal imbalances, more often than not, it can be attributed to behavioral factors, the main one being overeating. Overeating consists of consuming more calories than the body needs, which the body stores as fat. But what affects the way people eat and the amount people eat? Studies show that human eating behavior has social or external influences that most people are unaware of, resulting in most cases to overeating, however in some scenarios to under eating.

In a recent study published in Physiology and Behavior, Marion Hetherington and colleagues suggest that external factors influence overeating. They conducted a study that followed the eating behaviors of participants in a social setting and concluded that human eating behavior is influenced by the presence of others and by the availability and palatability of food. Data in the study suggests that eating with friends or family can enhance the amount one eats by over forty percent (498). Hetherington gives a couple reasons for the increase in food intake when around familiar faces. The first reason is “time extension” (498). This means that when one is eating meals with others, conversation extends the time that one is exposed to food. Secondly, while the exposure to food is greater, one is also multi-tasking, in a sense, when conversing over a meal. Therefore the social aspect serves as a “distraction, which impairs the ability to self-monitor” (498) how much food one eats. Furthermore the study found that it is easier to overeat when watching TV, listening to the radio, or doing something else that requires more attention. Lastly, the study showed that when people overate in social situations, they tend to pick foods high in sugar and fat (cakes/chips vs. coleslaw) “indicating that social facilitation effects might be greater for particular food types (highly palatable, high energy snacks) which are more commonly consumed in social settings” (503). This article highlighted the fact that people eat more in social settings because this gives them more exposure to the food and also because conversations serve as a distraction that does not allow the person to monitor how much he or she is eating. Furthermore, the fact that individuals are more drawn to foods high in fat and sugars while in social settings may be a problem for the maintenance of a healthy lifestyle.

Lenny Vartanian et al. in a similar study published in Health and Psychology found that even although external factors did influence overeating, more often than not, people were not aware of these factors. Vartanian says, “people tend not to acknowledge their own susceptibility to a number of environmental influences on their food intake.” This is consistent with the fact that “although people generally acknowledge that external elements (i.e. media, advertising) influence others. They deny the influence of these elements on their own behavior” (537). The study was set up so that pairs of participants (that already knew one another) watched TV together and had access to food. These participants were later surveyed. Most participants in the study attributed overeating to hunger, satiety, and taste, however the “vast majority of participants did not report any reason that was even remotely related to the presence of the co-eater” (535). This study sheds light on another important barrier to maintaining a healthy diet. Not only is it the fact that overeating occurs in social settings, most of the time people are completely unaware that they are overeating and what the cause is.

It is clear from these two studies that overeating has a social influence, which may be harming a person’s ability to eat healthy and as a result may cause obesity. However, the social influence of eating with strangers was not observed in either of these studies. In her journal article titled Effects of Social Context on Overweight and Normal-Weight Children’s Food Selection, Sarah-Jeanne Salvy sought to figure out if the presence of peers can influence the way overweight or normal children eat. The study paired up an overweight child with a normal weight child. These children did not know each other and were offered snacks. The study concluded that the obese children ate more when alone and less when with the normal weight children, while the normal weight children ate less when alone and more when with the overweight children showing that the two groups tried to match each other’s food intake. This study, like the two before does show that social influence affects overeating, however, unlike the other two, this time the presence of a thinner peer who was a stranger decreased the amount of food intake by the heavier peer. The researchers concluded, “overweight individuals may modify their food selection in front of others to avoid incurring the stigmas attributed to overweight individuals” (191). This study further solidifies the point that overeating can definitely be attributed to social surroundings, however, it shows that when around strangers and non-family members, individuals tend to match their food intake with the other person. This example shows how social influence could actually aid in maintaining a healthy diet for some individuals.

It is evident that social influences and factors play into overeating considerably. While eating with family and friends, individuals spend more time with exposure to food, therefore may inadvertently eat more. Furthermore, certain foods that are more common in social settings and happen to be high in fat and sugar tend are consumed at higher frequencies and often inadvertently. When eating with strangers, however, individuals often try to match the other individual’s food intake as to not be embarrassed by the amount of food that they eat. Whether eating with strangers or with family, one thing is certain, unless people realize the extreme importance of social influences on overeating in their own lives, overeating and obesity will continue to be a problem.


Works Cited

Hetherington, Marion M., Annie S. Anderson, Geraldine N.M. Norton, and Lisa Newson. “Situational Effects on Meal Intake: A Comparison of Eating Alone and With Others.” Physiology and Behavior 88 (2006): 498-505.

Salvy, Sarah-Jeanne, Elizabeth Kieffer, and Leonard H. Epstein. “Effects of Social Context on Overweight and Normal-weight Children’s Food Selection.” Eating Behaviors 9 (2007): 190-196.

Vartanian, Lenny R., C. Peter Herman, and Brian Wansink. "Are We Aware of the External Factors That Influence Our Food Intake?” Health Psychology 27 (2008): 533-538.

Module 3: Research & Writing Across the Curriculum Rough Draft Changes

When writing my paper, I naturally had to make some adjustments from my rough draft. Besides the expected fine-tuning, editing, and adding of details and examples, I made two major changes.

The first major adjustment I made from my rough draft outline was switching around the order of the first two paragraphs. I felt like the article I had originally chosen to put second fit better as the first paragraph because it was more general. It simply proved that people overeat when in social situations and gave a couple reasons why. I felt like the other article (that I had originally chosen to go first) went better in the second paragraph because it built upon this issue further and demonstrated the potential problem that it caused and why it may cause obesity. This article proved that while people do overeat in social situations, most of this overeating was inadvertent, which presents a major problem for maintaining healthy diet.

The second major change I made was completely changing the third article. I felt like the article I originally had focused more on the gender issues of eating around others, whereas I wanted to focus more on overeating and obesity. I feel like the article I put in now flows better with the topic, because while it does clearly agree with the main point of the other two articles (eating is influenced by social factors), it also presents a different point that eating in front of strangers, may in fact reduce overeating, which could be a potential benefit and may help in maintaining a healthy diet.

Module 3: Research & Writing Across the Curriculum Rough Draft

Since I am a pre-med student and a biology major, I was looking through the science related journals. While browsing through Health and Psychology, I came across an article about overeating and some factors that influence it. Many overeaters may not even be aware of these external and social factors that cause them to overeat. I read the article and thought it was very interesting and relevant because of how common obesity is in America. The United States has the highest rates of obesity in the developed world, where 32% of the adult population is obese. In fact, the World Health Organization (WHO) predicts that obesity will replace malnutrition and infectious disease as the largest cause of poor health. Therefore I feel this topic is very important and relevant. For my rough draft, I put together an outline of how I anticipate my essay to be constructed and organized.

I. Introduction 

A. Statistics about obesity and how it’s so common
B. Overeating common reason for obesity, important to find why people overeat
C. Possible reasons for overeating→ social or external influences

II. External factors influence overeating, however often inadvertent
A. This first article talks about how many times people are not aware of the external environmental factors that influence their food intake.
i. This could be a potential problem for dieting and reducing weight, because often people       

   inadvertently eat.

B. The article concludes that, “people tend not to acknowledge their own susceptibly to a number of environmental influences on their food intake.” This is consistent with the fact that “although people generally acknowledge that external elements (i.e. media, advertising) influence others. They deny the influence of these elements on their own behavior.”
C. Citation: Vartanian, Lenny R., C. Peter Herman, and Brian Wansink. "Are We Aware of the External Factors That Influence Our Food Intake?” Health Psychology 27 (2008): 533- 538.

III. Overeating more common when around others
A. The second article articulates that people usually overeat when they are with others because the social aspect serves as a “distraction, which impairs the ability to self- monitor.” 

B. Citation: Hetherington, Marion M., Annie S. Anderson, Geraldine N.M. Norton, and Lisa Newson. “Situational Effects on Meal Intake: A Comparison of Eating Alone and With Others.” Physiology and Behavior 88 (2006): 498-505.

IV. Overeating more common around others that one knows, but not around strangers
A. The last article serves as a further elaboration on the second article. It asserts that while people do overeat in the presence of friends, in the presence of strangers people usually try to “inhibit their food consumption or match the other’s intake.”
B. Furthermore this study sheds light on the issue of eating around those of the opposite gender. The study concludes that women feel more comfortable eating around women that are strangers as opposed to men that are strangers, quiet possibly to produce a positive impression with the opposite sex.
C. Citation: Salvy, Sarah-Jeanne, Denise Jarrin, Rocco Paluch, Numrah Irfan, and Patricia Pliner. “Effects of Social Influencing on Eating in Couples, Friends, and Strangers.” Appetite 49 (2007): 92-99.

V. Conclusion
A. A lot of overeating can be because of external or social influences that people are not even aware of
B. Around others, people often lose track of how much they are eating
C. Around strangers, people often match the amount of food eaten by the other person
D. People should be more aware of these inadvertent ways of gaining weight, may help them lose weight

Module 2: Individualism in the Digital Age, Part 3

For my blog post, I read the article called MySpace and Facebook: Applying the Uses and Gratifications Theory to Exploring Friend-Networking Sites. The main purpose of this article was four-fold. The first thing that the authors were trying to discover was some general information. This included the number of people that had Facebook or MySpace accounts, how many times they logged on, and how many hours a day were spent logged on. Furthermore, researchers looked at the kinds of information that people had posted and how many friends they had. The research showed that 75% of the participants had a Facebook and a MySpace account. This is a significant number considering that the participants did not know the topic of the survey before taking part. Also, approximately 87% of these people made information about themselves available on their accounts.

The next purpose of this research project was to look at whether gender differences existed within use of these websites. The researchers concluded that men are more likely to have more friends and more likely to log on during the day, whereas women changing their appearance on their accounts more often, to name a few. The conclusion was that gender differences on several key factors did exist.

Next, the study aimed to figure out what “gratifications” the users were getting from these websites. The researchers concluded that most people wanted to keep in touch with old or current friends.

And lastly, the study aimed to get an idea of the type of college students that had MySpace or Facebook accounts versus those that did not and what the reasons were for those that did not have an account. In general, those that did not have an account were older, compared to those that did have an account. Furthermore, those that did not have an account mostly attributed it to the fact that they just had no desire to have an account. I think the researchers succeeded in the goals that they laid out for themselves in the beginning of the study. However, I do agree with them that more extensive studies have to be conducted because it is difficult to reach conclusions with such a small sample size, particularly the small size of nonusers.

This article was very interesting for me because I wrote an essay on the article that’s main purpose was to evaluate the gender differences between the MySpace profiles of men and women. Therefore the gender differences section of this article was most interesting and relevant for me. I found it interesting that women were more likely to change their appearance and make personal information more available via their profiles. The article I read concluded that women were more likely to mention their significant others in their profiles and that was a somewhat reflection of the traditional gender roles. It makes me wonder if women changing their picture more often is a reflection of traditional gender roles, where appearance is heavily emphasized for women. The research also indicated that men were more likely to have a larger amount of friends than women were. I wonder if this too is a reflection of traditional gender roles where men are expected to be more outgoing than women are.

Module 2: Individualism in the Digital Age, Part 2

Gender role norms have existed in history since as far back as we can remember. There have always been traditional codes of masculinity or femininity that have existed, and our current time is no exception. The formation of gender norms has evolved from social norms and has become a part of society in more recent times via magazines, the Internet, and television, all of which affect how males and females are expected to behave.

According to a recent article called Development of the Conformity to Feminine Norms Inventory, by James R. Mahalik, et al. gender norms are so prevalent that they help to form the identity of individuals. Mahalik’s study aimed to identify some of the feminine norms in the dominant culture of US. Mahalik concluded that these norms included women being nice in relationships, thinness, modesty, maintaining the home, caring for children, investing in romantic relationships, sexual fidelity, and investing in appearance. Most women can agree that these things are expected of them in society through various sources. In a similar study by James R. Mahalik, et al. in a an article called Development of the Conformity to Masculine Norms Inventory, some of the masculine norms in dominant US culture were identified. They included wining, emotional control, risk-taking, violence, dominance, playboy, self-reliance, primacy of work, power over women, disdain for homosexuals, and pursuit of status.

The first and most prevalent source of these norms according to Mahalik are “social agents such as parents, teachers, peers, and the media teach women and men the rules and standards of femininity and masculinity.” In fact the learning of gender norms occurs as early as five years of age where, “children have already developed clearly defined notions of what constitutes appropriate behavior for men and women.”

Another source that has shaped the gender norms for men and women is the media. In television and magazines, women are expected to behave a certain way that makes them more feminine. According to an article by Dana Hinders called Gender Norms in Women’s Magazines, “women’s magazines consistently promote stereotypical gender behavior…women’s magazines promote the idea that woman’s role is to be a wife and mother.” Furthermore, this problem exists in teenage girl’s magazines too, such as Seventeen. Hinders says that according to a study, these magazines “encouraged readers to present themselves as sexually desirable, develop the skills of sexual therapy to enhance men’s sexual pleasure and performance, and become communication teachers to help men become better relational partners.” However, this problem of traditional gender norms surfacing in media outlets exists for men too, particularly younger men. According to a journal article from Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, gender norms for men come from “television, movies, magazines, and toys” and have a lot to do with body image, which affects the self-esteem of many younger men. For example, “the ideal heightened muscularity and very low body fat” is a look that is common in men’s magazines and even in toys for boys such as the GI Joe toy which has “gotten progressively more muscular” with time.

With Internet becoming as popular as it has, there has been an increase in websites that are solely for the purpose of social interaction between males and females. Some of these websites even ask people to post pictures for others to rate on a numerical scare (ratedesi.com, hotornot.com). According to an online article by Marj Kibby called "Babes on the Web. Sex, Identity and the Home Page" women “predominantly depict themselves through shots of their breasts framing their clothed, semi-nude or naked torso from shoulder to waist.” Furthermore, studies of social networks such as MySpace and Facebook have shown that these forums are a valuable way to look at the way males and females represent themselves and provide insight into what this suggests about their gender identities.

Lastly, television has played a huge part in the formation of gender norms for young adults. Music videos often depict women in a stereotypical female role and men in a masculine role. In fact, sometimes lyrics to songs are playing into the formation of gender norms. For example, in a Britney Spears song called I Was Born to Make You Happy, Britney chants: “I don’t know how to live without your love/ I was born to make you happy.” Ignoring the fact that Britney is scantily clad and the male model in the video has a chiseled six-pack, the lyrics alone are packed with gender stereotypes. What is even more troublesome is that this song is directed at an audience of teenage girls. It’s no wonder that traditional gender norms are still so prevalent in our society when they are fed to kids from such a young age.

Gender norms do still exist today and become incorporated as a part of social norms in a child’s life at a very early age through teachers, parents, and other figures of authority around them. As time goes by, society and the media, particularly through magazines, Internet, and television, further emphasize these norms. There needs to be drastic reforms of our media and what we allow children to watch, what we allow them to have access to, and what we let them read. But more importantly, we as a society need to change our views on what is expected. Unless this happens, we can’t expect change.


Works Cited

Dana, Hinders. "Gender Norms In Women's Magazines." Associated Content. 15 Nov. 2005. 28 Oct. 2008 .

Kibby, Marj. "Babes on the Web. Sex, Identity and the Home Page." Popular Culture: Gender. 9 Nov. 1997. Washington State University. 28 Oct. 2008 .

Mahalik, James R., Benjamin D. Locke, Larry H. Ludlow, Matthew A. Diemer, Ryan P. J. Scott, Michael Gottfried, and Gary Freitas. "Development of the Conformity to Masculine Norms Inventory." Psychology of Men & Masculinity 4 (2003).

Mahalik, James R., Elisabeth B. Morray, Aimee Coonerty-Femiano, Larry H. Ludlow, Suzanne M. Slattery, and Andrew Smiler. "Development of the Conformity to Feminine." Sex Roles 52 (2005).

Module 2: Individualism in the Digital Age, Part 1

A Hypothetical Experiment that relates the article’s topic

This hypothetical experiment supports the thesis from the article Gender Differences in “Social Portraits” Reflected in MySpace Profiles by Melissa Joy Magnuson and Lauren Dundes. They conclude that the differences between MySpace profile pages of males and females give a good indication to the vast differences that exist between the two genders, even today. Magnuson and Dundes conclude that women “learn to balance their own needs with defining themselves in relation to others,” whereas men do not. For this reason, women mention their significant other in their profiles far more often then men do. The authors furthermore say that “females’ career goals and family goals are seen as connected and affecting one another, contrasting with males’ tendency to see them separately.”

The following experiment would further shed light on this issue:

Who: This experiment will be conducted with 20 working women in a relationship and 20 working men in a relationship who do not already have a MySpace account.

What: The experiment will ask the women and men to separately create a MySpace account and fill in as much as they care to reveal about themselves, including uploading photographs. In the subsequent weeks as the new users add friends and get more acclimated with their accounts, they will be asked to write down every time they log on.

Where: This study will have the 20 men and 20 women sitting in different rooms and provide them with access to computers and the Internet and assist them in the basics of creating a MySpace account.

When: The study will begin in separate computer labs where the men and women will create their accounts. However, it will be continued over a period of 4 weeks, where the participants will be asked to document every time they log on and will be encouraged to add friends and remain active on MySpace, if they so desire.

Why: The MySpace accounts created will be assessed according to the guidelines and conclusions that have been laid out by Dudes and Magnuson. Researchers will evaluate how many times women mention their significant others or post pictures with them. Not only that, but since the authors conclude that women are less apt to differentiate between various aspects of their life, researchers will assess how often women include other information, such as friends and work, as compared to men. Furthermore, the number of friends and the times logged on for men and women will be noted by the researcher to see if women do in fact define themselves “in relation to others” and add more friends and log on more often then men do.