Implications of learning theory for developing programs to decrease overeating

Abstract

Childhood obesity is associated with medical and psychological comorbidities, and interventions targeting overeating could be pragmatic and have a significant impact on weight. Calorically dense foods are easily available, variable, and tasty which allows for effective opportunities to learn to associate behaviors and cues in the environment with food through fundamental conditioning processes, resulting in measurable psychological and physiological food cue reactivity in vulnerable children. Basic research suggests that initial learning is difficult to erase, and that it is vulnerable to a number of phenomena that will allow the original learning to re-emerge after it is suppressed or replaced. These processes may help explain why it may be difficult to change food cue reactivity and overeating over the long term. Extinction theory may be used to develop effective cue-exposure treatments to decrease food cue reactivity through inhibitory learning, although these processes are complex and require an integral understanding of the theory and individual differences. Additionally, learning theory can be used to develop other interventions that may prove to be useful. Through an integration of learning theory, basic and translational research, it may be possible to develop interventions that can decrease the urges to overeat, and improve the weight status of children.

Dose, Content, and Mediators of Family-Based Treatment for Childhood Obesity

“…4 Enhanced social facilitation maintenance, especially at higher doses, improves weight outcomes, consistent with learning theory. 10,35 Enhanced social facilitation maintenance extends opportunities to practice behaviors acquired during FBT and promotes learning new skills (eg, peer engagement) and management of food and activity cues across more contexts of children’s lives to help them engrain healthier eating and activity habits. More than 80% of children in the higher-dose SFM+ achieved clinically significant levels of weight change at 12 months, compared with less than 50% in CONTROL.…”

Advances in Research on Contingency Management for Adolescent Substance Use

“…Empirical support for the importance of incorporating parent-led and clinic-based CM interventions into treatments targeting the modification of adolescent health behaviors continues to grow 34,35 . Future experimental and implementation efforts should continue to examine the effectiveness of CM for targeting a wide variety of adolescent health behaviors, with the hope that findings will generalize across behaviors and inform new interventions.…”

Learned desires

“…Preventing or diminishing the strength of returns of appetitive responses can potentially help improve the long-term successfulness of dieting efforts and treatments. However, while learning theorists have proposed a number of techniques that may counteract returns of appetitive responses (Boutelle & Bouton, 2015; Mark E. Bouton, 2011;Craske, Treanor, Conway, Zbozinek, & Vervliet, 2014;Havermans & Jansen, 2003;Jansen, Schyns, Bongers, & van den Akker, 2016;Laborda, McConnell, & Miller, 2011), their effectiveness in humans remains largely untested.…”