Behavior Modification & Weight Loss

The behavior targeted for control is overeating. The behavior targeted for increase therefore consists of positive eating habits. For the present purposes, overeating is defined as eating in excess of the amount required for healthy living such that one's weight is greater than desired. In this instance, the individual is habitual 10 to 15 pounds over her "ideal" weight, a condition classifiable as "mild obesity."

Behavior modification programs for weight loss are most useful for individuals who are mildly obese (Foreyt, 1987). Such programs are more than diets because they emphasize longterm improvements in eating and often in exercise behavior (Hoerr, Nelson & EssexSorlie, 1988; Johnson & Corrigan, 1987).

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ping and eating out raise great difficulties for the control of stimuli associated with eating. The present program attempts to circumvent those difficulties by altering the home environment and by placing certain restrictions on the kinds of restaurants considered permissible under its terms. In other words, the program attempts to achieve stimulus control through providing clearly discriminable stimulus conditions for proper and improper eating, rather than by attempting to remove nondietary foods completely. Such discrimination learning constitutes stimulus control by definition (Rachlin, 1978). It is necessary to compromise between the demands of the real environment and the purity of laboratory conditions. Furthermore, a eating habits learnd in an environment controlled in a completely artificial way could not survive the official limits of the diet. The kitchen will be arranged in superficial ways so that foods for other family members, particularly snack foods, will be placed in unfamiliar locations. The purpose of this manipulation is not to fool the dieter, but to create an environment that clearly defines the stimuli associated with permitted and nonpermitted foods. That is, it provides discriminati
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2181
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)

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