Food Components to Enhance Performance An Evaluation of Potential Performance-Enhancing Food Components for Operational Rations (1994) / Chapter Skim
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8. The Role of Context in Behavioral Effects of Foods
8. The Role of Context in Behavioral Effects of Foods
Pages 137-158
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From page 137... ...
Placing food in its context has led to research and discussion of a number of situational or contextual variables such as the effort needed to obtain food (Collier, 1989; Meiselman et al., 1988) , the time of day food is eaten (Birch et al., 1984; Kramer et al., 1992)
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From page 138... ...
A useful example might be derived from the growing body of research on noncaloric substances such as sugar and fat substitutes as human foods. The initial studies were simple, looking at the impact of a sweet drink (e.g., aspartame-containing beverages)
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From page 139... ...
discussed several alternatives for controlling the immediate previous nutritional states of test subjects. For a diet that is to be consumed the next day, for example, the experimenter can request abstinence from eating following the evening meal or can administer a standard meal before the test.
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From page 140... ...
In what way does one determine baseline performance, and in what way does one examine behavior or mood without any treatment? Many ways of establishing baselines might be as potent as treatments in changing food habits.
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From page 141... ...
Parallel studies on placebos, alcohol, and eating likewise indicate that expectancies improve behavioral outcomes (Lick and Bootzin, 1975; Marlatt and Rohsenow, 1980; Polivy, 1976~. Given the potential importance of these cognitive mediators, research is needed not just on controlling them to determine the utility of various substances but also on understanding and applying these influences in relevant situations.
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From page 142... ...
Studies have shown that increased effort affects food choices and intake in both laboratory and natural eating environments (Engell and Hirsch, 1991; Meiselman, et al., 1994~. When the effort to obtain a food is increased, selection and, as a result, intake of that food decrease.
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From page 143... ...
For example, caffeine may function fairly successfully as an alertness enhancer in most people, or tyrosine might aid in the reduction of stress-based decrements in performance. However, as noted previously, if the relevant source items are not consumed—a real risk with military rations—then the effectiveness or lack thereof is moot.
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From page 144... ...
Given the nature of military operations, challenges to circadian rhythms are to be expected, and in instances of rapid deployment, they pose a potentially serious risk. Circadian rhythms may also have a mediating role on food and perfonnance relationships (Mistlberger, 1990~.
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From page 145... ...
For example, research at Fort Devens found that soldiers ate significantly more rations at a meal and rated foods as more acceptable when their sergeant made a moderate positive comment and ate most of their meal than when he made a moderate negative comment and ate approximately two-thirds of his meal (Engell et al., 19901. Similarly, following a 2-week ration field test, soldiers who reported that they typically ate their meals in a social setting (i.e., with a small group of friends or colleagues)
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From page 146... ...
Army sergeant explained to his men the importance of eating unusual foods such as grasshoppers in order to survive and concluded his talk by actually eating a grasshopper, 90 percent of subjects ate one or more grasshoppers; in contrast, hedonic ratings gave no indication of an attitude change. On the other hand, following a cognitive dissonance approach, after soldiers heard a talk by an aloof professional who offered 50 cents to each person who would eat a grasshopper, only 50 percent of subjects actually chose to do so, although hedonic ratings indicated a significant, positive change in attitude.
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From page 147... ...
states that the performance enhancing rations "would be sufficiently stable to withstand long-tenn storage; they would be sufficiently appealing to ensure consumption; and they would be packaged to withstand standard ration abuses and to promote ration acceptance." This requirement expects more from a performance-enhancing ration than was obtained from the current ration, the Meal Ready to Eat (MRE) (Hirsch and Kramer, 1993; Lester et al., in press; Meiselman et al., 1988~.
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From page 148... ...
Since the goal is to enhance performance in combat, one must also question whether a soldier in actual combat would eat more or less than what field training exercise studies have shown. Questionnaire data collected from U.S.
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From page 149... ...
Only 3 percent reported eating more than usual on the first combat day, and 29 percent reported eating the same as usual on the first combat day. Therefore, it is highly likely that underconsumption of rations in a real combat situation would be the same or worse than the underconsumption observed in training exercises.
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distinguish chronic nutritional effects that can produce behavioral changes from acute diet manipulations that produce subtle, nonclinical behavioral changes. He suggests that acute manipulations must be done chronically to observe less subtle behavioral effects.
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Technical Report T7-87. Natick, Mass.: Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine.
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Sharpe 1987 Evaluation of the Ration Cold Weather during a 10-day cold weather field training exercise. NATICK Technical Report TR-87/030.
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Technical Report Natick TR-85/035. Natick, Mass.: U.S.
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Askew 1988 A comparison of the Meal, Ready-to-Eat, Ration Cold Weather and Ration, Lightweight nutrient intakes during moderate altitude cold weather field training operations. Technical Report T5-89.
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NATICK Technical Report TR-87/027. Natick, Mass.: U.S.
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From page 156... ...
However, the bugs crawled out of some plant in San Antonio, and the Secretary of the Army put a total moratorium throughout the world that "thou shalt not" eat any more MREs until we find the problem in the production plant. That happened 2 days before the planned study.
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From page 157... ...
I was reminded by the sergeants explaining the importance of eating grasshoppers, about the studies during World War II that addressed food acceptance, in order to get the American public to eat organ meats, they did experiments in which they suggested that if, in fact, they had somebody who posed as an expert- the tests showed that they got a greater acceptance than if they just told people that this is good for them. EDWARD HORTON: I am fascinated, as I have listened to this morning's presentation, at the parallelism between sleep deprivation and food deprivation and the importance of the context.
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From page 158... ...
We predicted that their food acceptance ratings would go down over time, an example of classic monotony. In fact, what happened is that the troop ratings of the foods stayed absolutely flat for 35 days.
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