Lesson 4.3.6.4

4.3.6.4 Explanations for obesity Quiz: AQA Psychology, Unit 3

20 questions

Written by Revision Ninja · Last reviewed 11 October 2026

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Lesson 4.3.6.4, Explanations for obesity: 20 multiple choice questions for the AQA Psychology (7182), Unit 3: Issues and options in Psychology, written with Revision Ninja.

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The 20 questions

  1. What does restraint theory propose about people who restrict their eating?

    • Those who restrict eating in a rigid way may overeat when their restraint breaks down
    • Those who restrict eating have increased ghrelin release that prevents weight loss
    • Those who restrict eating always lose weight and never overeat in the long term
    • Those who restrict eating are protected from obesity by high leptin levels

  2. What is disinhibition in the context of obesity?

    • A reduced ability to digest fats, which prevents weight gain from high-fat foods
    • A reduced ability to feel thirst, which leads to dehydration and overeating
    • A reduced ability to smell food, which prevents the person from detecting high-calorie meals
    • Loss of control over eating when a person is exposed to strong cues or emotional triggers

  3. Which biological factor is proposed as a contributor to obesity?

    • A lack of sunlight that reduces the production of cortisol
    • A single virus that enters the bloodstream after a meal
    • An excess of cortisol produced by the cerebellum during sleep
    • Genetic variation affecting appetite regulation or energy use

  4. Which neural explanation is proposed for obesity?

    • A lack of testosterone in the spinal cord that reduces physical activity, which is thought to be the main driver of weight gain in adults
    • Damage to the occipital lobe that prevents people from seeing food clearly, so they cannot judge how much they have eaten during a meal
    • Altered reward responses in the brain, such as dopamine activity linked to the pleasure of food
    • Excess serotonin in the medulla that stops all eating behaviour, which is thought to protect people from weight gain across their lives

  5. A person eats a large amount of food after a stressful event, although they had been dieting strictly. Which explanation best fits?

    • Enmeshment, since the person's family set rules about eating during the stress
    • Disinhibition, in which emotional arousal overrides the restraint the person had been maintaining
    • Taste aversion, since the food was paired with an unpleasant memory
    • Neophobia, since the person has never eaten the food before the stressful event

  6. Which statement describes the boundary model of obesity?

    • Eating is determined entirely by the number of neurons in the frontal lobe
    • Eating is determined entirely by the amount of cortisol in the blood at each meal
    • Eating is determined entirely by a fixed genetic boundary that cannot change in any person
    • Eating is influenced by a boundary between restrained and disinhibited eating that can shift with circumstances

  7. A researcher gives restrained eaters a high-calorie milkshake and measures how much they eat afterwards. Which finding would be most consistent with restraint theory?

    • Restrained eaters eat the same amount whether they have the milkshake or not, because the restraint is unaffected by any single food
    • Restrained eaters eat less after the milkshake than after the low-calorie drink, because they feel full sooner after the high-calorie food
    • Restrained eaters who had the milkshake eat more afterwards than restrained eaters who had a low-calorie drink
    • Restrained eaters refuse all food for the rest of the day after the milkshake, because they feel guilty about breaking their diet

  8. Which evaluation point applies to genetic explanations of obesity?

    • Genetic explanations prove that obesity is unrelated to diet and physical activity, so changes in lifestyle have no effect on body weight at all
    • Genetic variation probably works through interaction with environmental factors such as diet and activity
    • Genetic explanations show that obesity can only occur in a small number of people, so most people are protected from it by their genetic makeup
    • Genetic explanations can be fully tested in a single generation of participants, so the results are always clear and easy to interpret

  9. Which finding would best support a neural explanation of obesity?

    • Brain imaging shows identical reward responses to food in people with and without obesity
    • Brain imaging shows no activity in regions linked to reward at any time
    • Brain imaging shows stronger reward responses to high-calorie food in people with obesity
    • Brain imaging shows reduced activity in the hypothalamus only after people have eaten

  10. Which term describes eating in response to external food cues rather than internal hunger?

    • Internal eating, which is driven by the feeling of an empty stomach
    • External eating, which is driven by the sight, smell or availability of food
    • Neophobic eating, which is driven by fear of trying unfamiliar foods
    • Covert eating, which is driven by the desire to hide food from others

  11. A person with obesity states that they feel they have already ruined their diet, so they may as well eat the whole cake. Which explanation best fits this pattern of eating?

    • The abstinence violation effect within restraint theory, where one lapse leads to overeating
    • A learned fear of cakes, which leads the person to avoid them entirely in future
    • A neural lesion that stops the person from recognising the taste of sugar at all
    • A genetic mutation that increases the number of fat cells in the body during childhood

  12. Which criticism of psychological explanations of obesity is most appropriate?

    • Psychological explanations ignore the role of all environmental cues in eating behaviour
    • Psychological explanations have been shown to be entirely correct in every case studied so far
    • Psychological explanations have never been studied in any experimental setting at all
    • Much of the evidence is correlational, so it is unclear whether restraint causes overeating or follows from it

  13. Which conclusion best integrates the explanations of obesity?

    • Obesity is caused only by genetic factors, and psychological factors have no effect at all on weight, so environment and behaviour can be ignored
    • Obesity is caused only by chance, so no explanation is needed, and weight gain would happen in the same way for everyone regardless of their habits
    • Obesity is caused only by psychological factors, and biological factors have no effect at all on weight, so treatment should focus on thinking alone
    • Genetic and neural factors may predispose individuals, while psychological processes such as disinhibition influence when overeating occurs

  14. A study finds that people who score highly on restraint and then receive a 'forbidden' food eat more than those who score low on restraint. Which concept does this best illustrate?

    • Neophobia towards unfamiliar foods in the study
    • Disinhibition following a break in restraint
    • Taste aversion following a bad food experience
    • Enmeshment within the family of each participant

  15. Which neural structure is most often linked to reward and motivation in explanations of overeating?

    • The occipital cortex, which processes visual information from the eyes and sends it on for further analysis in the brain
    • The medulla oblongata, which controls breathing, heart rate and other automatic functions of the body in every situation
    • The spinal cord, which carries nerve signals between the brain and the rest of the body through the vertebral column
    • The mesolimbic dopamine reward pathway, which runs from the midbrain to the nucleus accumbens

  16. Which statement is a limitation of explaining obesity through genetics alone?

    • Obesity rates have fallen steadily in all countries over the last fifty years
    • Obesity has been found in only one specific ethnic group in every study
    • Obesity has been shown to be unrelated to any form of inherited trait in families
    • Obesity rates have risen rapidly in a short period, which genetic change alone cannot easily explain

  17. A person with obesity is given a drug that increases dopamine activity in reward pathways. Which effect would the neural explanation predict?

    • Increased thirst and reduced hunger, leading to a fall in food intake
    • No change in eating, since dopamine has no role in reward at all
    • Reduced reward from food, which would lead to immediate weight loss
    • Increased reward from food, which may lead to greater eating

  18. Which statement best describes the role of disinhibition in obesity?

    • It describes a fixed inherited level of restraint that cannot change over a lifetime
    • It describes an increase in leptin that makes eating unpleasant for the person
    • It describes a reduction in the fat stored in adipose tissue after dieting
    • It describes the loss of control over eating that can occur when restraint is overwhelmed

  19. Which is the most appropriate evaluation of the restraint theory of obesity?

    • It explains some overeating but cannot account for all cases of obesity, which have multiple causes
    • It has been disproven by every study ever conducted on restrained eating in people
    • It fully explains all cases of obesity without the need for any other explanation at all
    • It shows that restraint always protects people from overeating and gaining weight

  20. A person with obesity has a genetic variant linked to reduced satiety signalling. Which explanation of obesity does this best support?

    • A genetic explanation in which inherited variation affects appetite regulation, which may increase the likelihood of overeating
    • A psychological explanation in which the person has learned to overeat by watching others eat at family meals regularly
    • A cognitive explanation in which the person holds distorted beliefs about the amount of food that is safe to eat each day
    • An evolutionary explanation in which the person has a taste aversion to foods that are low in fat and sugar

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