Obesity and Eating Disorders: The Two Extreme Eating Behaviors

On the eating spectrum, there seems to be two opposite extremes, obesity and eating disorders. Most people would categorize their eating behavior as normal or between these two extremes. However, these two conditions are still prevalent in society today. Although rare, eating disorders and obesity have a long history of origin. These conditions, while requiring attention and response, created other concepts and theories. Restraint theory is one that stemmed from curious minds of different eating behavior. Through the progression of the theory, many dependent variables have been tested to see the effects on restraint eating. However, the connection of soda or sugary drink consumption has not been investigated yet. There may be a connection between obesity, eating disorders, restraint eating, and soda or sugary drinks consumption.

Obesity is now a medical condition in which one’s excess body fat causes adverse medical, physical, and emotional issues. People are considered obese when their body mass index (BMI) is over 30kg/m2. Body mass index is calculated by dividing a person's weight in kilograms by the square of the person's height in meters. Obesity originally was viewed as the body‘s natural response to store fat for survival through harsh times of famine. “This ability to store surplus fat from the least possible amount of food intake may have made the difference between life and death, not only for the individual but also—more importantly—for the species. Those who could store fat easily had an evolutionary advantage in the harsh environment of early hunters and gatherers” (Eknoyan. G, A History of Obesity…). Those who were obese were seen as superior, even so that statues were modeled after them. The best ...

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...y are preparing for Spring break, going to the beach, and other summer activities. They may go on diets or reduced their daily food intake in order to look good in time for social outings. The study will take approximately 1 ½ hours and some subjects may drop out because they no longer want to be in the study.

In addition to the reliability and threats to validity, the concern of power is an important factor of this study. A power analysis is used to determine the necessary sample size to produce an ideal effect size. To have an efficient amount of power, we would need an effective sample size and set alpha coefficient. For our group to have optimal power, we need a medium sample size (n) which is between 70 -80 people. Since there will be 5 members in the group, if each person runs 14-16 participants, then the sample size should be enough to power the experiment.