Figure 4.

The central axis of eating behaviour, which like other goal-oriented motivated behaviours, operate in cycles of anticipation, consummation and termination. Directly linked to these cycles (in animals and humans) are reactive processes of learned habitual behaviours and response to environmental (e.g. food availability, palatability) and somatic cues such as stress and emotional reactivity. The neurobiological architecture of eating behaviour (i.e. selection and consumption of different foods) in turn, influences energy balance through the effects of eating behaviour on energy intake. The diagram acknowledges that components of the system exert feedback to influence both cycles of goal-oriented eating behaviour and the prompts and cues that influence reactive components of eating behaviour. Strategies of behaviour change, which involve cognitive modification of beliefs, attitudes, intentions and plans, aimed to reshape eating behaviour are often less influential than we would hope, particularly if they oppose reactive and/or homeostatic and hedonic factors. This schema assumes that the asymmetry of regulation evolved to align homeostasis and hedonics in resource-limiting environments, e.g. selection of energy-dense foods occurs because they are highly palatable, and pleasure is a central cue that links food reward to ecologically adaptive patterns of learned ingestive behaviour. (Online version in colour.)