[Resistance to modification of dietary behavior]

Abstract

There exist certain pathological eating behaviors (they deviate from the usual eating pattern in a given environment; ex.: hyperphagia, alcoholism, bulimia, nibbling sweets, etc.): there also exist certain pathogenic, though not pathological, eating behaviors (a "normal" behavior may induce an affection in given subjects; ex.: obesity in subjects with a normal caloric intake, hypercholesterolemia in subjects with a normal lipid intake, etc.). In the perspective of Public Health, the field of pathological behavior calls for specialized individual interventions, which can sometimes serve as research models; but the field of pathogenic behavior is now such a widespread social phenomenon (50% of the female population wishes to reduce, 50% of the male population dies from alimentary-linked cardiovascular diseases) that it must be systematically investigated. Such investigations would require: 1. A typology assessing the effectiveness of all the techniques aimed at a modification of eating behavior, whether preventive or therapeutic (through information, pressure, learning); 2. A typology of the resistance to change, whether physiological, psychological or psychosocial. A study of both typologies is necessary since until now all the attempts to induce a population as a whole to renounce food plethora have been unsuccessful, except when imposed by economic or political motivations. Moreover, in a society oriented toward consuming, a change in eating behaviors must be "consumable", that is, at once adequate and gratifying, in order to be accepted.