Page 167 - Nutrition Counseling and Education Skills: A Guide for Professionals

7C H A P T E R

Summary

There are numerous applications and major advantages of behavior therapy. Programs integrating behavioral
approaches appear to hold the most promise for effecting lasting changes. In particular, comprehensive
programs that consider the psychological, cultural, environmental, and behavioral factors are more apt to be
successful.

Eating patterns are not altered easily, but behavior modification therapy offers promising techniques that
may be helpful to both the client and the counselor. Analysis of the ABCs—the antecedents of eating, the
eating behavior itself, and the consequences of eating—by the counselor and client leads to understanding of
the problems, the setting of goals, and the development of strategies for change. Efforts should be made to
arrange consequences that reinforce and maintain desirable changes, with an ultimate goal being independent
client self-management. Behavior modification may be used in conjunction with other counseling and
education strategies.

Review and Discussion Questions

1. Describe the similarities and differences in learning styles of classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and modeling. Are there situations
or cases in which you would prefer using one style over another?

2. Give two examples of a chain of events using the ABC framework.
3. Describe two methods of self-control discussed in the chapter and discuss how each aids in successful behavior modification.
4. List one important behavior modification strategy for each of the applications discussed: obesity, diabetes, CVD, and human resource

management.
5. Apply the nutrition care process and nutrition care process terminology to the case challenge of Martha using the steps of nutrition

assessment, nutrition diagnosis, nutrition intervention, nutrition monitoring, and evaluation.

Suggested Activities

1. Complete a food diary for 3 days using written or digital format. Identify your cues for eating. Identify your reinforcers. Set one goal for
change with identified reinforcers.

2. Record and identify your own ABCs related to an activity other than eating, such as studying, exercising, and smoking. How can these
behaviors be made to occur more or less often by rearranging the antecedents, consequences, or both?

3. Role-play and record a counseling session. How often did you reinforce positive behaviors?
4. Arrange to watch an adult interact with a child or children for half an hour. Tally the number of times the adult attends to desirable

behaviors, which reinforces them, versus the number of times desirable behaviors are ignored, which may lead to their extinction. Note
whether the adult responds to undesirable behaviors, which reinforces them.
5. Identify your own reinforcers by making a list of leisure-time activities that you enjoy, people you like to be with, and things you would
purchase with extra money. Select an appropriate reinforcer for yourself for the next time you have a book to read or a paper to write. Identify
a time schedule for dispensing the reinforcer.
6. Select an undesirable behavior of your own that you would like to diminish. Record the situations in which the stimulus or the behavior
occurs for 3 days. Identify the controlling stimulus conditions just before the behavior and the reinforcement.
7. Identify three situations in which modeling occurs.
8. Discuss your personal experiences at work and compare them with those of others. Does your supervisor praise or punish? What are the
consequences of the supervisor’s actions on your behavior and that of other employees?

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