The Overconsumption Of Junk Food

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Effective ways of implementing behavioural modification is the primary focus of this paper. The participant had a negative behaviour affecting their life and contributed to low self-control. Overconsumption of junk food was an established and routine negative behaviour, which was being negatively reinforced. The target behaviour is to decrease the amount of junk food consumed on daily basis. In order to measure the effectiveness of the treatment, the consumption of junk food will be quantified through serving size and quantity. There are several antecedents leading up to the undesirable behaviour that are internally driven such as sugar cravings, restlessness, and stress. The external environment also propels the behaviour due to food-related …show more content…

This learning method has been propelling the undesired behaviour of the participant through reinforcement. The participant consumes junk food and is reinforced with negative reinforcement as stress is removed, thus the behaviour needs to elicit negative consequences for it to decrease (Starling, Branson, & McGreevy, 2013). The negative consequences can either be a positive or negative punishment. Punishments can either incentivise an action by adding or taking away a stimulus from the environment. The participant had a hobby of playing video games and enjoyed it very much, but this activity would now be reduced if junk food were consumed. The participant had to choose wether eating junk food would be worth the risk of reducing video game playtime. The participant is now compelled to be more aware of the eating habits and able to evoke a sense of self-control as it affects a pleasurable hobby. The punishment will take away 2 hours of gaming session whenever a junk food of one serving of 52 grams is consumed daily. Furthermore the time taken from gaming session will increase by 5 hours for each time a serving of junk food exceeds the threshold of one serving per day. It will be a continuous negative punishment that will seek to increase progressive evaluation of eating

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