behaviour modification

• Behavioural Modification


  Techniques used to try and decrease or increase a particular type of behaviour or reaction
• Behavioural modification is used very frequently by all of us
• Uses of behavioural modification


  • Parents use it to teach their children right from wrong
  • Therapists use it to promote healthy behaviours in their patients
• Purpose of behaviour modification


  Not to understand why or how a particular behaviour started, but to focus on changing the behaviour
• Behaviour change


  Requires a focus on the broad range of activities and approaches that affect the individual choosing food and beverages in their community and home environment
• Behaviour modification


  Implies the use of techniques to alter a person's response to environmental cues through positive and negative reinforcement, and reduction of maladaptive behaviours
• Education and counselling


  Can assist the individual in achieving short-term or long-term behavioural goals to improve health outcomes
• Factors affecting the ability to change


  • Financial constraints; perceived lack of time; situational expectations; lack of preparation, knowledge, and skills; low motivation; and inadequate family or social support
  • Cultural diversity in understanding, beliefs, and values
  • Physical and emotional factors
• Factors affecting the ability to change for older adults


  • Former positive or negative experiences with food and eating behaviours, financial and food security situations, willingness to use food assistance programs, transportation issues, physical changes that affect food access and intake, and social influences
• Factors affecting the ability to change for families


  • Time restraints, child-parent interplay, sibling dynamics, stressful everyday life, and a low priority for diet within the arena of parental concerns
• Factors affecting the ability to change for children


  • Food marketing, taste preferences, food insecurity, and the availability of competing foods of low nutritional quality
• Across all ages, culture affects not only what foods are eaten and how, but also perceptions about education, counselling, health, and health care
• Hastened conception of intervention without full understanding about what behaviour was trying to be changed, what are the causes of those behaviours, or what are the interests and needs of the community/individuals
• Interventions based on a poor understanding of how to persuade individuals/communities to change their behaviour
• Knowledge by itself doesn't result in behaviour change
• Changing behaviour


  The ultimate goal for nutrition counselling and education
• Providing a pamphlet or a list of foods can reinforce information, but it usually is not enough to change eating behaviour
• Behavioural science


  Has provided valuable insight into the many different factors that influence what someone eats and has helped identify several mediators of people's eating behaviour on which to intervene
• Health professionals, including registered dietitian, can support individuals in deciding what and when to change by using a variety of health behaviour theories
• Theories for behaviour change most commonly used


  • Health belief model
  • Social cognitive, or learning theory
  • Theory of planned behaviour, or reasoned action
  • Transtheoretical Model, or Stages of change model
  • Consumer information processing model
  • Social networks/social support theories
  • Community organization
  • Organizational change theories
  • Ecological models
• Perceived susceptibility


  Clients beliefs regarding the chance that they may get a condition or disease
• Perceived severity


  An individual's belief of how serious a condition and its consequences are
• Perceived benefits


  An individual's belief in the positive effects of the advised action in reducing the risk or the seriousness of a condition
• Perceived barriers


  An individual's belief about the tangible and psychological costs of the advised action
• Self-efficacy


  Clients believe they are capable of performing the desired action
• Cues to action


  Strategies to activate one's readiness to change a behavior
• Health Belief Model


  • Explains and predicts individual changes in health behaviours, focusing on a disease or condition and factors that may influence behaviour related to that disease
• Social Cognitive, or Learning Theory


  • Explains the reciprocal interaction among personal, behavioural, and environmental factors, and is particularly useful to understand complex behaviours, such as eating
• Theory of Planned Behavior, or Theory of reasoned action


  • Explains intentions as precursors of behaviour at a given time and place, with intentions predicted by attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived control
• Transtheoretical Model (TTM), or Stages of Change Model


  • Describes behaviour change as a process in which individuals progress through a series of six distinct stages of change, whereby they move from experiential to behavioural processes of change
• Precontemplation


  The individual has not thought about making a change
• Contemplation


  The individual has thought about making a change but has done no more than think about it
• Preparation


  The individual has taken some steps to begin to make the desired change
• Action


  The individual has made the change and continues it for less than 6 months
• Maintenance


  The individual has continued the behaviour for longer than 6 months
• Termination


  The individual no longer thinks about the change; it has become a habit
• Health belief model (HBM)


  • A theoretical model used to explain and predict individual changes in health behaviours, focusing on a disease or condition and factors that may influence behaviour related to that disease
• Social cognitive theory (SCT)


  • Explains the reciprocal interaction among personal, behavioural, and environmental factors, and is particularly useful to understand complex behaviours, such as eating
• Theory of planned behaviour (TPB)


  • Explains intentions as precursors of behaviour at a given time and place, with intentions predicted by attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived control
• Transtheoretical model of change (TTM)


  • Describes behaviour change as a process in which individuals progress through a series of six distinct stages of change, whereby they move from experiential to behavioural processes of change