Leslie Glass's Blog, page 405
January 4, 2018
The role of peers in treating addiction is still unclear
In particular, peers are being used to help on the front end of the opioid crisis. Their work can begin immediately after someone has been rescued from an overdose, to help the individual get through the next few hours and days and in many cases to help engage the person in treatment. This is a desperately needed function, not only for humane purposes (people recovering from a naloxone rescue are confused, sick and unable to think clearly about what has just happened to them), but also because there simply is not enough professional staff to go around.
Addiction Professional spoke with several experts in the recovery movement to examine the current status of peers.
“Peer support is the process of giving and receiving non-clinical assistance so that people can achieve long-term recovery,” says Tom Coderre, senior advisor for behavioral health at the Altarum Institute, a health systems research and consulting organization.
Coderre, who worked on recovery issues as senior advisor to the assistant secretary at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) from 2014-2017, and before that as national field director for Faces & Voices of Recovery, emphasizes that a peer is not the same as a treatment professional. In fact, the person who is being assisted ultimately might not want to go to treatment, but it is the peer’s job to help the person follow through on the best path to recovery for that individual.
For peers to be most effective in responding to the opioid overdose epidemic, they need to be in places where people show up, says Coderre. “That’s why you’re seeing them in police departments,” he says, with first responders often being the ones providing the dose of naloxone that rescues people.
In Rhode Island, the most active peer program in the country has a foothold in emergency departments, and also in outreach. “They don’t wait for people to show up,” Coderre says of the Anchor ED program.
Training of peers
There are “thousands” of peers working through recovery community organizations (RCOs), says Patty McCarthy Metcalf, executive director of Faces & Voices of Recovery. About 100 of the RCOs are part of Faces & Voices. The model is for the RCO to provide training to peers, and for peers to work through the RCO. The RCO itself may have a contract with an emergency department, drug court, police department or other organizations, with the peers assigned by the RCO.
The peer has an experiential knowledge of addiction. But some organizations want peers to be in recovery for a set period of time before working with clients. Two years generally has been the standard, with this originally having been based on when it was believed to be personally safe for a person to share publicly that he/she was in recovery.
“It’s a state-by-state decision in terms of recruiting peers to participate in the training of a recovery support worker,” Metcalf says of the sobriety period.
She adds that despite the dire need for more assistance to combat the opioid crisis, she would not recommend relaxing the two-year sobriety period “because we need to protect the integrity of peer services. And we need to build capacity and infrastructure to meet the demand.”
A new profession
Peers are not sponsors, as in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), and they are not counselors—or in fact any type of clinical professional. But the precise scope of what they do is still being worked out, and depends largely on where they are working.
Rachel Witmer, assistant director of the International Certification and Reciprocity Consortium (IC&RC), which offers a peer recovery credential, explains that many issues with peers involve the newness of the work. Definitions vary from state to state and organization to organization. “What Faces & Voices calls a recovery coach, some people call a peer recovery specialist,” Witmer says.
In some jurisdictions, the peers must themselves be in recovery from a substance use disorder. In others, a peer can be a family member or friend of someone with a substance use disorder, Witmer says.
Even though the title and credential are new, the presence of peers is as old as the drug and alcohol treatment field itself, says Witmer. “Peers were very much about the origins of treatment before it was more regulated,” she says. “Now they’re cycling back in.” But because the concept of peers as professionals is so new, there are still problems defining the scope of their work, she says.
The purpose of a credential is to develop expertise in a field, says Witmer. “Both a credential and a license are indicators of a certain amount of experience and training,” she says. The IC&RC peer recovery credential is developed to include basic concepts for both substance use and mental health disorders. “It’s a combined credential,” Witmer explains. “It’s pliable.” There are now about 2,000 IC&RC-certified peers in the U.S.
Credentialing, for the most part, is used to establish reimbursement for peers. “This is a growing trend,” says Coderre. Ten years ago, reimbursement was rare, mostly coming from grants. “Now we’re actually seeing insurance companies, and Medicaid, reimburse for peer services,” he says.
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How Facial Yoga Can Make You Look 3 Years Younger
Interest in so-called facial yoga has grown in recent years, largely because of claims that it can “rejuvenate the aging face, presumably by inducing underlying muscle growth,” the authors of the new paper wrote. Until now, however, there have been no published clinical trials to assess whether these types of exercises really can improve appearance of the skin and facial features.
So dermatologists and researchers from Northwestern University teamed up with Gary Sikorski, the creator of Happy Face Yoga, to test his technique out on a small group of middle-aged women who wanted to look younger. The women were between 40 and 65 and had mild to moderate facial atrophy—another word for thinning and sagging skin—related to aging and sun damage.
The study participants all attended two training sessions with Sikorski himself and learned 32 distinct facial exercises that each take about a minute to perform. They were instructed to do these exercises at home every day for eight weeks. After that, they were told to continue practicing every other day.
The participants were photographed at the beginning of the study, at the eight-week point, and at the end of 20 weeks. Afterward, the photographs were shown to dermatologists who did not know the order in which they were taken. They were asked to assess 19 different facial features and estimate the woman’s age in each photo.
According to the dermatologists’ ratings, the women’s upper and lower cheeks both became fuller over the course of the study. The women also appeared younger by the end of the program: The average perceived age of participants was 50.8 before the exercise regimen began, 49.6 at the eight-week mark, and 48.1 after 20 weeks.
Lead author Dr. Murad Alam, vice chair and professor of dermatology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, says that facial exercises improve appearance because they enlarge and strengthen facial muscles. “The face becomes firmer and more toned and shaped like a younger face,” he said in a press release.
Muscle tone is important, he says, since skin loses elasticity as it ages and the fat pads between the skin and muscles—which give the face its shape—become thinner and start to slide, giving the face a fallen or saggy appearance. Building up the muscles underneath can provide a literal boost to the skin, counteracting some of these effects.
“Assuming the findings are confirmed in a larger study, individuals now have a low-cost, non-toxic way for looking younger or to augment other cosmetic or anti-aging treatments they may be seeking,” Alam said.
The women in the study also reported being very satisfied with the results of their facial exercise routine and noticed improvements in nearly all of the 19 facial areas rated by the dermatologists. The routine is time-consuming, however, and it may not be for everyone: Out of the 27 women initially enrolled in the study, 11 dropped out before its conclusion.
Alam says that facial exercises that may be particularly beneficial include those that involve puckering and squeezing the cheeks. Here are two examples from the study you can try at home:
The Cheek Lifter: Open mouth and form an “O.” Position upper lip over teeth, smile to lift cheek muscles up, and put fingers lightly on top part of cheeks. Release check muscles to lower them, then lift back up. Repeat by lowering and lifting the cheeks.
The Happy Cheeks Sculpting: Purse lips together and smile without showing teeth, forcing cheek muscles up. Place fingers on corners of the mouth, and slide them up to the top of the cheeks. Hold for 20 seconds.
This article originally appeared on Health.com
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January 3, 2018
New behavioral science approach combines experiments, models
From Science Daily Researchers from North Carolina State University and Northwestern University are outlining a new approach to behavioral research that draws on experimental studies and computer models to offer new insights into organizational and group behavior.
“Social research has a history of using both small-scale experiments and computer models to explore questions about human behavior — but there are very few examples of how to use these two techniques in concert,” says William Rand, a computer scientist and assistant professor of business management in NC State’s Poole College of Management who is co-lead author of a paper describing the work.
“This paper details an approach that we feel capitalizes on the best aspects of both research techniques to advance our understanding of the behavior of large groups and advance the field,” says Ned Smith, an associate professor of management and organizations at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, who is co-lead author of the paper.
Here’s how the approach works. Researchers design and conduct experiments aimed at addressing a behavioral question, such as how a small group tries to solve a particular problem. The data from those experiments can then be fed into a model, allowing researchers to predict how this behavior would manifest itself on a larger scale. The results of the model may then be used to inform future experiments, further validating the model or shedding new light on the research question.
For example, experiments may find that groups take two different approaches to solving a given problem. The model could then help researchers predict which circumstances lead groups to choose one approach over the other. The researchers can then devise additional experiments to determine whether the model is correct.
“This sort of work can help us answer questions that have relevance for everything from business management to public policy,” Rand says. “That’s because computer models provide us with a testbed to explore how sensitive lab results are to the particular settings they are constructed around, as well as examining policy interventions that may alter social behavior in beneficial ways.
“Our goal with this paper is to make people aware of this approach, which makes good use of experimental data and advances in computational modeling,” Rand says. “We think this is a valuable tool that could help advance the field of organizational behavior as a whole. We want this idea to catch on.”
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What Is Passive Aggressive
By Signe Whitson, LSW for GalTime.com
One of my favorite stories about passive aggressive behavior in a marriage goes like this:
“Cash, check or charge?” I asked, after folding the items the woman wished to purchase. As she fumbled for her wallet, I noticed a remote control for a television set in her purse. “So, do you always carry your TV remote?” I asked. “No,” she replied, “but my husband refused to go shopping with me and I figured this was the most evil thing I could do to him legally.”
In relationships, passive aggressive behaviors are often used to avoid the direct confrontation of short-term conflict, but in the long-term, these dynamics can be even more destructive to marriage than outright aggression. To keep assertive communication flowing in your relationship, here are four strategies to effectively confront passive aggressive behavior:
Recognize the Warning Signs of Passive Aggressive Behavior Passive aggression is a deliberate and masked way of expressing covert feelings of anger. This “sugar coated hostility” involves a variety of behaviors designed to get back at another person without the other recognizing the underlying anger. When a person is able to quickly identify hallmark passive aggressive behaviors for what they are—hidden expressions of anger—they take the first critical step in disengaging from the destructive dynamic. Some of the most common passive aggressive behaviors to be aware of include:
Procrastination
Behaving beneath customary standards
Pretending not to see, hear, remember, or understand requests
The silent treatment
Sulking & withdrawal
Gossiping
Refusing to Engage
Passive aggressive adults are experts at getting others to act out their hidden anger. The skill of recognizing passive aggressive behaviors at face value allows you to be forewarned and to make a choice not to become entangled in a no-win power struggle. When you sense these destructive dynamics coming in to play, manage your own emotions through self-talk statements such as:
“He is being passive aggressive and I will not participate in this routine.”
“I will not yell or become sarcastic because this behavior will only escalate the conflict.”
Point Out the Elephant in the Room
Passive aggressive people spend their lives avoiding direct emotional expression and guarding against open acknowledgement of their anger. One of the most powerful ways to confront passive aggressive dynamics and change the behavior in the long-term, then, is to be willing to point out anger directly when it is present in a situation. Anger should be affirmed in a factual, non-judgmental way, such as, “It seems to me that you are angry at me for making this request.” The impact of this seemingly simple exposure can be quite profound.
Expect & Accept Denial
Your goal is to make overt the anger that has been covert, stuffed inside, and kept secret for so long. Expect that once this has been done, the passive aggressive person will deny the existence of anger.
When he does, you should verbally accept the defenses for the time being, with a response such as, “Okay! It was just a thought I wanted to share with you.” Don’t argue or correct the person’s denial at this time, but rather quietly back away from further discussion, leaving your spouse with the thought that you are aware there are some feelings of anger behind his behavior.
The advantage of this approach is the comfort of not having to justify or defend your acknowledgement of the anger. By simply sharing your awareness of his covert anger, you have sent a bold and powerful message that the passive aggressive behavior cannot continue and the relationship needs to change.
More from GalTime:
Are Married Men Who Do Laundry Messing With Their Sex Lives?
7 Ways to Divorce-Proof Your Marriage
3 Mistakes Women Make in the Bedroom
Can Relationship Worries Make You Sick?
Passive aggressive behavior can wreak havoc on relationships, marriages and families. For more strategies and techniques to effectively confront passive aggressive behavior, check out The Angry Smile: The Psychology of Passive Aggressive Behavior in Families, Schools, and Workplaces, 2nd ed.,
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25 tips for Teens coping with Grief
Teen grief is very real when friends and siblings die from overdoses, accidents or suicide. Most teens know someone who passed away do to drug or alcohol use. The loss may be the friend, or sibling, who is no longer able to attend school or be part of your life because of his or her lifestyle. Or it may be someone who died in an accident resulting from alcohol use, or by overdose, or suicide. Any death of this kind is devastating and traumatic. The closer you were to the person who’s gone, the more painful it is. Know that you are not alone in your grief, and that thousands of others are suffering just like you.
Managing Teen Grief In A Healthy Way
We’re going to give you a list of the things you can do to help you, but it’s important to know that you have the power to help yourself. Asking others for help is the most important thing you can do for yourself, plus, it helps them as much as it helps you. People around you want to help–friends your own age, relatives, teachers, counselors, your spiritual leaders all find hope and comfort in comforting you. That’s important to know.
Don’t Think It’s Not A Big Deal While Your Heart Is Broken
The trauma of losing a loved one at this age in this way is something that can cause lasting hurt. While coping skills are often similar to how adults cope with grief and loss, you also may find some healing techniques to be unique to being an adolescent. Let’s explore these techniques.
26 Coping Skills For Teen Grief
It’s healthier to admit your heart is broken – let yourself feel the grief
There’s no right or wrong way to grieve. Your feelings, anger, sadness, hurt, are all normal. You’ll have many feelings, some of which may be disturbing. Those are the ones you need tools to deal with
Some deaths are more difficult to cope with than others, no question about that. Avoidable deaths can hurt even more
Grief is a rollercoaster. Sometimes you’ll be calm and sad. Other times you overwhelmed by what went wrong and feel as though you can’t cope
You may guilty, especially if the friend died from an overdose and you were there. If you had given up on them and were not there to help, know that they chose to use and it’s not your fault
Hormones may contribute to overwhelming feelings such as despondency, despair, depression, and because of this, you may have thoughts of suicide
If you feel suicidal, immediately talk to someone you trust such as a parent, a teacher, or a counselor call the teen suicide hotline
Your thoughts and feelings are nothing to be ashamed of, you don’t need to feel embarrassed
Be open and honest with friends about how you feel
Thoughts and feelings aren’t facts – if you feel suicidal, it doesn’t mean you have to attempt suicide, or you will attempt suicide. it means that you are in significant pain and you need help. Tell someone
It’s common to angry, hurt, or abandoned because someone died and left you, or chose using over you
Don’t develop unhealthy ways to try to cope with the loss – using substances, skipping school, or cutting yourself. Again this is the time to find someone who can help you
There are many to cope with your feelings that don’t involve talking about it over and over or hurting yourself. You can write in a journal, draw, exercise, create a memory book of the loved one, put flowers on a grave. You can attend the funeral
It’s perfectly possible to grieve, laugh, do well at school, and have fun at the same time. You’re one person, but have lots of different parts that can be nourished in so many ways
Yes, there will be plenty of gossip about the person who has died. This can be especially painful if it’s your closest friend, a sibling, or a parent. Try to let it go. Gossip is just that.
You may feel that the world is now an unsafe place or that your belief system has been damaged – explore ways to feel safe and to think about life’s meaning
Watch out for numbing yourself from the pain in order to try to feel better – numbing doesn’t work in the long run
Be careful not to just throw yourself into school or work as a way to cope. Everything in moderation
Use social media to help you as there are numerous ways to learn, cope, and heal through grief, including online grief support groups
Make sure you are doing the basics in life – eating healthy, resting/sleeping, exercising
Ask others questions regarding life and death
Seek a spiritual mentor if religion/spirituality are important to you and/or do spiritual activities such as praying, having fun, playing in nature, being creative, meditating, discussing spiritual questions
Be kind to yourself and others
Consider counseling at school or outside individual or group therapy
understand that by working through the pain, while it won’t totally go away, you can grow and heal and also help others
While grief is heart-wrenching, you can go beyond surviving the sorrow to once again, being able to thrive and enjoy life’s ups and downs.
Looking for a guidance to cope with your teen’s grief? Visit Recovery Guidance for a free resource to find addiction and mental healthcare professionals near you.
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January 2, 2018
Rise of stimulant use spurs national cocaine, meth and stimulant Summit
Against this backdrop, the Institute for the Advancement of Behavioral Healthcare is launching theNational Cocaine, Meth & Stimulant Summit to engage stakeholders across the country in discussions about the scope of the issue and best practices in local and national response strategies. The conference will be held November 12-14, 2018, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Clinical professionals, whether part of larger systems or in private practice, are in an ideal position to discuss with their clients why stimulants are no less dangerous than opioids, as well as address the trauma and shame histories that often lead to substance misuse. Law enforcement officials are taking steps to educate their teams and communities about effective strategies for removing these drugs from the streets, and multiple stakeholders are working together to prevent stimulant use, provide access to treatment, and ensure that stimulants are part of larger societal discussions about addressing drug use.
“The National Cocaine, Meth & Stimulant Summit will be the ideal venue to convene stakeholder conversations about addressing stimulant use, particularly during our national opioid crisis,” says Doug Edwards, director of the institute.
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Autism Rates Have Stabilized in U.S. Children
The new research letter, published in JAMA, looked at survey responses from a nationally representative sample of more than 30,000 children, ages 3 to 17, and their families. From 2014 to 2016, adults in each household were asked if a doctor had ever told them that their child had autism, Asperger’s disorder, pervasive developmental disorder or autism spectrum disorder. Data from the study was then adjusted to account for differences in people’s age, gender and ethnicity.
The researchers found that in 2014, 2.24% of participating children were reported to have an autism spectrum disorder. That number rose only slightly in 2015 and 2016, to 2.41% and 2.58%, respectively—an increase that was not statistically significant.
Autism rates did vary by sub-group. Over the three-year period, 3.54% of boys were reported to have an autism spectrum disorder, compared to 1.22% of girls. Prevalence was 1.78% in Hispanic children, 2.36% in black children and 2.71% in white children.
The overall estimate for autism prevalence among children in the analysis—2.4%—is higher than another recent estimate, from the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network, of 1.46%. The discrepancy may be explained by differences in study design, the authors note in their report. For example, the new study asked parents if their child has received a diagnosis, while the previous study looked at education and health-care evaluations.
The current study did not gather information about possible causes for autism and how those factors may (or may not) have changed over time. And, although the survey the researchers used has been going on since the 1960s, the question about autism was changed in 2014—so it cannot be used to estimate change in autism prevalence rates during earlier years.
Several large studies have suggested that autism rates have risen steadily in the last 20 years, but this new report suggests that rates may be leveling off. The ADDM Network’s estimated rates also plateaued between 2010 and 2012 (after increasing roughly 123% between 2002 and 2010), but then jumped 30% from 2012 to 2014.
Changes in diagnostic criteria, an increase in public awareness and more children being referred to physicians have all been suggested as possible causes for the previously documented rise in autism rates, the authors wrote in their report. So have potential changes in genetic and environmental risk factors. “Continued monitoring of the prevalence and investigation of changes in risk factors are warranted,” they concluded.
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Surprise Rich people don’t have better relationships than poor people
From Time Affluent people have many more resources available to them, and it certainly looks as if they’ve made smart decisions about money. But are they happy? Do they have better relationships? A recent study finds that people who aren’t rich may actually make wiser decisions when it comes to their relationships with friends, family and co-workers.
The research, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, examined the link between class and reasoning in two experiments: an online survey of 2,145 people from across the United States and in-person interviews with almost 300 residents of one county in Michigan. Both groups included people from varying economic backgrounds, from the nonworking poor to the middle- or upper-class.
People in the study were asked to recall recent experiences from their lives, or to consider hypothetical situations, that involved friends or coworkers. They also answered questions designed to determine how much they engaged in each of the five aspects of what the researchers called “wise reasoning style.”
People with wise reasoning style recognize the limits of their own knowledge (known as intellectual humility); recognize that the world is in flux and that situations can unfold in multiple ways; look at things from an outsider’s viewpoint; recognize the other side’s perspective in an argument; and search for ways to compromise and resolve conflicts.
The researches found that people in a higher social class “consistently related to lower levels of wise reasoning,” the authors wrote in their paper. The results were consistent across different regions of the United States and occurred regardless of people’s IQ, age, gender and personality differences in agreeableness, openness to new experiences and consideration of others’ emotions.
The findings suggest that higher social class “weighs individuals down” by undermining their ability to reason wisely, the study authors wrote in their paper. “The rich may have the affordances that provide the foundation for higher education and potential for wealth,” lead author Igor Grossman, associate professor of psychology at the University of Waterloo, told TIME by email, “but they may have less of the affordances that teach them—or force them—to reason wisely about interpersonal conflicts.”
Other research has suggested that wealthier people are more narcissisticand get more happiness out of their own accomplishments than from their relationships with others. The same type of independent mindset “may enable them to more likely ‘shrug off’ their interpersonal conflicts and reason less wisely,” says Grossman.
A person’s ability to relate well to others also seems to depend on the status of people nearby. A rich person in a low-status position—compared to his or her boss, for example—may be just as wise as a lower-class person, Grossman says. “There is research on how experimental manipulations of power and status change your perception of reality,” he says, “including feeling of entitlement.”
The new research only found class differences in reasoning around interpersonal conflicts, and Grossman stresses that the findings don’t necessarily translate to decision-making around finances, careers or other areas of life. He’s also not suggesting that being “wise” has much to do with why a person is rich or poor.
“In our view, this has more to do with the social structure and lack of social mobility in the United States, rather than their ability to reason about interpersonal affairs,” he says.
What the study does suggest, he adds, is that people who want to be wiser should strive for a more interdependent mindset. “Take a third-person perspective, and the perspective of the other person in the situation,” he says. “Understand that situations and perspectives can change in time, and the importance of collaborating and cooperating to maintain long-term relationships.”
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Perfectionism among young people significantly increased since 1980s, study finds
The drive to be perfect in body, mind and career among today’s college students has significantly increased compared with prior generations, which may be taking a toll on young people’s mental health, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.
This study is the first to examine group generational differences in perfectionism, according to lead author Thomas Curran, PhD, of the University of Bath. He and his co-author Andrew Hill, PhD, of York St John University suggest that perfectionism entails “an irrational desire to achieve along with being overly critical of oneself and others.”
Curran and Hill analyzed data from 41,641 American, Canadian and British college students from 164 samples who completed the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale, a test for generational changes in perfectionism, from the late 1980s to 2016. They measured three types of perfectionism: self-oriented, or an irrational desire to be perfect; socially prescribed, or perceiving excessive expectations from others; and other-oriented, or placing unrealistic standards on others.
The study, published in the journal Psychological Bulletin, found that more recent generations of college students reported significantly higher scores for each form of perfectionism than earlier generations. Specifically, between 1989 and 2016, the self-oriented perfectionism score increased by 10 percent, socially prescribed increased by 33 percent and other-oriented increased by 16 percent.
The rise in perfectionism among millennials is being driven by a number of factors, according to Curran. For example, raw data suggest that social media use pressures young adults to perfect themselves in comparison to others, which makes them dissatisfied with their bodies and increases social isolation. This has not been tested and further research is needed to confirm this, said Curran. The drive to earn money, pressure to get a good education and setting lofty career goals are other areas in which today’s young people exhibit perfectionism.
In another example, Curran cited college students’ drive to perfect their grade point averages and compare them to their peers. These examples, according to Curran, represent a rise in meritocracy among millennials, in which universities encourage competition among students to move up the social and economic ladder.
“Meritocracy places a strong need for young people to strive, perform and achieve in modern life,” said Curran. “Young people are responding by reporting increasingly unrealistic educational and professional expectations for themselves. As a result, perfectionism is rising among millennials.”
Approximately half of high school seniors in 1976 expected to earn a college degree and by 2008, that number had risen to over 80 percent. Yet, numbers of those earning degrees has failed to keep pace with rising expectations, according to Curran. The gap between the percentage of high school seniorsexpecting to earn a college degree and those with one doubled between 1976 and 2000 and has continued to rise.
“These findings suggest that recent generations of college students have higher expectations of themselves and others than previous generations,” said Curran. “Today’s young people are competing with each other in order to meet societal pressures to succeed and they feel that perfectionism is necessary in order to feel safe, socially connected and of worth.”
The increase in perfectionism may in part be affecting the psychological health of students, said Hill, citing higher levels of depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts than a decade ago.
Hill urged schools and policymakers to curb fostering competition among young people in order to preserve good mental health.
Explore further: Research suggests perfectionism and work motivation contribute to workaholism
More information: “Perfectionism Is Increasing Over Time: A Meta-Analysis of Birth Cohort Differences From 1989 to 2016,” by Thomas Curran, PhD, University of Bath, and Andrew Hill, PhD, York St. John University. Psychological Bulletin, published Dec. 28, 2017.
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Do food labels help to promote healthier eating habits
Obesity has become a major health issue due to the current ‘obesogenic’ environment in which unhealthy food is both easy and cheap to purchase. As a result, many (government) organisations encourage healthy eating habits among the general public by providing information on healthy diets. Nevertheless, when people encounter stimuli that they have learned to associate with certain snacks, they tend to choose those products, even when they know these are unhealthy.
The researchers investigated the effects of health warnings on food choices in the presence or absence of food-associated stimuli. This includes every kind of stimuli associated with food, including adverts that trigger thoughts of a tasty snack or the sight or smell of food which leads to craving.
‘Health warnings often make people want to choose healthier food products, yet many still end up picking unhealthy food products’, says Verhoeven. ‘We suspected this might partly be due to the fact that people learn to associate specific cues in their environment with certain food choices. For example, eating a cheese burger regularly occurs in the visual presence of a large logo M. This causes a strong association between the stimulus (the logo) and the rewarding experience of eating a cheese burger. Simply seeing an M eventually causes us to crave a burger and triggers a learned behaviour to head to a fast-food restaurant. Unhealthy choices are therefore automatically activated by learned associations, making health warnings, which focus on conscious choices, ineffective.’
To test their hypothesis, the researchers used a specific computer task, the Pavlovian-instrumental transfer, in a controlled setting to simulate the learning processes between certain (food) choices and environmental stimuli in subjects. ‘Health warnings for healthy food choices only seem to be effective in an environment where no food cues are present. Whenever stimuli are present which people have come to associate with certain snacks, they choose the accompanying (unhealthy) food product, even when they know it is unhealthy or aren’t really craving that food product. It didn’t matter whether we alerted the subjects before or after they learned the associations with food cues’, says Verhoeven.
How do you ensure people don’t just have the intention to buy healthier food products but actually go ahead and do so? The researchers suggest decreasing the level of food-associated stimuli people, and children in particular, are exposed to. One way to do this, for example, would be to decrease the amount of advertising for unhealthy foods. Also, the results suggest that these processes could in turn stimulate the choice for healthy products. Verhoeven: ‘It is worthwhile exposing people to healthy food products together with certain environmental cues more often, for example by showing more adverts for healthy products. The environment could also be shaped such that healthy choices are the easiest to make, for instance by placing healthy products at the front in canteens or by replacing chocolate bars with apples and healthy snacks at the cash register. In this way, you give people a gentle push in the right direction.’
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