Pat Hartman | Childhood Obesity News

What Is Drive-Reduction Theory?

Pat Hartman July 18, 2022 No Comments

It seems that in its simplest form, drive-reduction theory has to do with physiological (bodily) needs. One source gives this definition:

If we were to get too hot (need to be cool), we would seek shade (the drive).

There seems to be something not quite accurate about this. Actually, the physiological drive, the bodily need, is to be cool. This could be accomplished in several ways, of which seeking shade is only one possibility. Getting into the water would be another. For a human, opening the refrigerator door and standing in front of it would be another. So, seeking shade is not the drive. Seeking coolness is the drive.

In truth, when the sun is too hot, it is the drive to cool off that causes a move into the shade of a tree. Or the dive into the water. Or the erection of an umbrella. But the umbrella is not the drive. The refrigerator is not the drive. When a basic definition inspires such niggling doubts, where does the hopeful student go from there? The same page attempts to elucidate, but only sows more confusion:

Understand — “physiological need” means something without which you, or the species will die. So it’s a pretty short list — food, water, temperature regulation, sleep, air, and sex.

The situation quickly becomes more complicated. The author says,

A starving person feels driven to eat at the smell of baking bread, and the bread itself becomes the incentive.

Here is a problem. When the scent of baking bread hits their noses, non-starving people also feel driven to eat. It is a stimulus that affects even someone who has very recently finished a satisfying meal. The gigantic advertising industry is the same. Someone who has not eaten in two days might see a billboard that depicts an ice cream sandwich, and feel hunger pangs. But a very well-fed person, who is not the least bit calorie-deficient, can see that same billboard and also feel a tremendously strong desire to eat that ice cream sandwich.

An incidental question

As soon as psychology enters the equation, wouldn’t any research done on animals, to establish any of the basics, have to be eliminated? Because animal psychology is a very limited area, at best. Sure, a dog that has been beaten will show what looks very much like a psychological reaction — it will cower at the sight of a stick. And pets definitely have the psychological savvy to guilt-trip or charm their humans into handing out extra treats.

But human psychology is a vast and varied field, where so much is going on at every moment, it makes some of these notions look pathetically simplistic. Another sentence from the same page says,

Drive-reduction theory states that when a physiological needs arises, so does a psychological drive to reduce the need.

But humans are unique in a propensity to go out of their way to cultivate the existence of drives, and the advertising that sells french fries and sugar-sweetened beverages is but one example.

Recreational drug use is another place where feeble theories go to die. No one can dispute that an addict’s desire for heroin is a colossally powerful drive. But (except in the case of a patient suffering severe pain) there is nothing physiologically, on a body level, natural about a craving for opiates. It is an intentionally created and cultivated drive, caused not by nature, but by invitation, by purposeful action on the part of the human who seeks it. So it hardly deserves to be discussed in the same breath as, for instance, the physiological need to give birth when the baby is ready to come out.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Drive-Reduction,” Instructure.com, undated
Image by Roland Tanglao/CC BY 2.0

You Never Know Where It Might Lead

Pat Hartman July 15, 2022 No Comments

There is much to be said for the idea of capturing children’s attention by suggesting things for them to do rather than sit in front of an electronic screen, or stuff their faces. Some medical professionals subscribe to the idea that motion begets motion; that once you entice a child into doing something even a little bit active, a spark will ignite. It might lead to their finding a fascinating interest that lasts for a season, or a consuming passion that will determine their career. Many families also still practice some degree of isolation, at least relative to pre-pandemic days. So here is one last group of suggestions for free (or very economical) indoor occupations.

Kitchen table amusements

Rice grains can be used for pouring exercise, to get a feel for amounts. Supply a set of measuring cups and spoons. This does not mean you expect the child to ever cook, but it conveys the fundamental idea that measurement is considered important, and in every field of endeavor there are commodities that need to be measured according to many different standards.

Sit the child down to practice hand-eye coordination by transferring water from one bowl to another in a teaspoon, without spillage. If noise sensitive, use a plastic bowl. Or if it’s china, make silence part of the task. The idea here is to give the fine motor skills a workout and, incidentally, keep the hands busy not eating.

Music and noise

A round plastic coffee container, a round cardboard oatmeal box — either one can be a drum. Remember, the main thing a little kid wants is your attention. Sit down for a while, and take turns tapping on the “drum” with one finger. Introduce some rudimentary notions of rhythm. With any luck, a child will catch on to not only the exuberant joys of percussion, but the vast world of intricacies, nuance, and subtleties.

If you partly fill a glass soda bottle with water and blow across the bottle’s neck, it makes a spooky noise. It’s fun to sit outside after dark and send ghostly greetings to passersby.

Of course, not everything is for everyone, but a certain kind of child will latch on to some oddball skill like the Tap Code and grow an obsession, and become inspired to pursue other areas of knowledge.

Useful little abilities

A child of a certain age can be amused indefinitely by a rousing game of “guess which hand.” A slightly older one will enjoy using their skills of dexterity and misdirection to hide the object from you.

If there is a cooking or postage scale around the place, one that measures in ounces, collect a bunch of small objects that are very close in weight. Demonstrate how you hold one in each hand and feel which you believe is heavier, then how you verify it with the scale.

In many households, a jar full of pennies can be found. Age makes a difference, but with the right kid you can lay down pennies one, two, three, which they imitate by laying down one, two, three. Then let them lay down five pennies in a different configuration, which you then imitate… And how high can pennies be stacked, anyway?

By the way, a game does not always require scorekeeping. There is enough competitiveness in the world already. Just appreciate the stage where a child can be amused for an incredibly long time by doing the same boring thing, over and over. Because the secret sauce is you. Never again will they grant you their attention so fully, so enjoy it while it lasts.

Round up some other coins, and practice making change. Even knowing they will grow up in a world of digital transactions, it can’t hurt to develop this anachronistic skill. It helps with math and involves neither eating nor watching a screen.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Images by Sheila Sund, Ruth Temple, Randy Stern/CC BY 2.0

Even Behind Closed Doors

Pat Hartman July 14, 2022 No Comments

This page has been looking at alternative things that children can do rather than stare at screens. Of course, not all kids are alike, but it has been shown that activity is energizing, and can make the idea of additional exercise seem appealing. There is evidence that even a small amount of motion is more beneficial than an inert state. And a silly game that a parent initiates as a time-filler might strike a spark of curiosity that leads somewhere amazing. With any luck, an older child will learn time-consuming tricks and enjoy playing the wise elder by passing along the art of filling time by actually doing something.

How many steps does it take to get from place to place? From the front door to the bathroom basin? Compose a list of starting points and destinations, and ask for a report. Or request an inventory of things in the home that are round, and a complementary list of things that are not round. It doesn’t need to make sense, as long as the child is moving, and out of your hair for a few minutes. Give up notions of utility, and cultivate a philosophy of discovering what might seize a child’s imagination or promote a sense of mission in wanting to master an obscure skill. you never know what odd abilities might come in handy, later in life.

The world’s smallest planetarium

Turn a paper cup upside down and poke holes with a pushpin, in the shape of a constellation. Turn off the lights and shine a flashlight up through the cup. If you are lucky enough to have a bathtub, you can plant a child in there with a set of finger paints and let them go crazy making art on the sides of the tub, or themselves, with easy cleanup. Inside an apartment, a parent can use string or masking tape on the floor to make an imaginary tightrope, or a maze.

Use an old lipstick or something else removable, to draw a puppet face on a hand. Figure out how to make monsters with hand shadows.

Save that paper

Paper can serve many purposes, and recycling different kinds of it can be rewarding. Maybe you can get hold of a roll of newsprint, or flatten out sheets of the paper that shippers crumple up to protect things in boxes. Stand the child up and draw around their feet, and ask them to use the outlines to design shoes. A big enough sheet can be laid on the floor, and a grownup can trace the outline of a child to make a lifesize paper doll, which the child can color in.

Show the child how to draw a circle by tying a string around a pencil. With sturdy paper and tape, you can make glove puppets (see the illustration) and color them in and put on a show. Fold paper a few times and cut out bits with scissors, to make snowflakes and other lacy designs.

Save up magazines to cut out pictures of animals, then mix and match the parts to create new animals. Make cards with collage pictures, scramble the cards facedown and pick one to make up a story about. From near-lifesize photos of faces, cut out parts to reassemble in a new way, and make a mask. Cut out mouths, and paste them onto popsicle sticks, to create a bouquet of smile flowers.

Learn how to do origami (see picture above). Of course, you can buy special multi-colored thin paper, but many kinds will work fine. After a holiday, sections of gift-wrap paper can be salvaged and cut into workable squares to make little sculptures of folded art. With string and a place to hang it from, origami shapes can make an attractive mobile.

Yes, it is still possible for a child to survive for an entire day without an electronic screen.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Images by Lorenzo Tlacaelel, vmiramontes, sheldonschwartz, GlueGunGlory/CC BY-SA 2.0

For the Sake of Movement

Pat Hartman July 13, 2022 No Comments

The broad topic here is mental and emotional health, because as inevitably as night follows day, mental and emotional problems will manifest through the body, and destructive fat is one of their favorite channels. Childhood Obesity News mentioned a recent meta-study whose message is worth repeating:

[S]ignificant associations were found between greater amounts of sedentary behavior and both increased psychological ill-being (i.e. depression) and lower psychological well-being (i.e. satisfaction with life and happiness) in children and adolescents.

In a manner of speaking, we are all allergic to sitting around. But not everyone has suitable recreational opportunities, especially in a plague situation. No one wants more of that, but the virus seems to have other ideas and intentions for us. Apparently, its newest iteration is as transmissible as measles, which is known for being ridiculously contagious. The upcoming winter could be like nothing we have ever seen before.

Even without a pandemic, a parent cannot always have the luxury of time to indulge an older child and meet the needs of a younger child. Some people live with a whole family in three rooms, or even one room, so many amusement ploys are unworkable. But everybody can’t just sit around and stare at an electronic device all the time. Sedentary, depressed, and joyless kids are likely to become obese kids.

A little help is better than none

Still, as many authorities have pointed out, even a small amount of activity can change the inner environment and promote overall health. If seclusion becomes preferable or even enforced, it is good to be ready with some original and creative entertainment ideas. Of course, places are different, and children’s safety is always important. In a neighborhood where outside play is safe, choose it because of:

1) fresh air
2) easier cleanup
3) chance of improved caregiver sanity
4) farther from the kitchen

Some activities suggested for outdoors could work fine in a garage or basement where a bit of mess or spillage (or noise) can be tolerated. Practice carrying a cup, a bowl, or a pitcher of water from place to place without spilling. Practice pouring neatly. If you happen to save up bubble wrap, the little bubbles are fun to pop with fingers, and the big ones are fun to stomp. Empty plastic bottles can be used to set up a bowling game. Or they can be arrayed across a floor at intervals and knocked down one by one. With materials at hand, kids can improvise their own version of the “Twister” game.

A child who is fairly new at walking can practice stepping up and stepping down, forward and backward, to develop muscle memory before encountering an actual curb. As this page illustrates, it is not that hard to construct a rudimentary balance beam. For smaller children, it is even helpful to practice on a wide board set very low.

Winter Bonus Idea: Fill three or four spray bottles with water tinted in different colors with food coloring, and let kids spray-paint colorful designs on snow.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Role of Physical Activity and Sedentary Behavior in the Mental Health of Preschoolers, Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review and Meta Analysis,” BachLab.pitt.edu, 04/16/19
Images by Jennifer T., VSPYCC, mel0808johnson, VSPYCC/CC BY 2.0

Wiggle Room Strategies

Pat Hartman July 12, 2022 No Comments

From a child-oriented perspective, the greatest cost of the COVID pandemic has been the loss of parents, grandparents, and other adults who are no longer around to pitch in with babysitting and homework help. Another great cost has been the lack of socialization, in some cases quite severe. Also, it is obvious that childhood obesity is gaining by leaps and bounds.

The virus has kept a lot of kids at home, and conditions could return to high levels of restriction. Between the stark necessity of sheltering in place and the actual physical danger of going out, it is hard to say which situation is worse for children and teens. Under very limited circumstances, it is still important that kids move around and do things — even with tight financial and material resources, even with cramped space, and even if the activity does not involve a huge caloric expenditure.

Wiggle room is all about figuring out how, within unavoidable boundaries, to generate some movement. Parents and caregivers need to be creative in introducing ways to put bodies in motion. Motion begets motion. If kids are busy doing physical stuff, it primes their systems to crave more activity. Also, if they are busy doing physical stuff, they are less likely to be eating. Want to be a great parent? Demonstrate that life can be lived to the fullest without food constantly at hand, or drink either. (Unless it’s plain water.)

Imagination counts

In the previous post, one subject was yard work, which can be done at different levels, depending on age. For the family that does not own land, there are other possibilities, like communal farming or volunteer park maintenance. If you do have some grounds to take care of, don’t aim for efficiency. The object is not to get the job done quickly. The object is to keep those youngsters interested in something other than sitting around like inert lumps of protoplasm.

Take chestnut collecting, for instance. Or the aforementioned stray gravel roundup. If a child walks back and forth to replace stones one by one, let them! This is not the time to be all managerial, demanding that they use a tin can to move several little stones at once like experts in logistics. The point is to see those kids burning even a few calories; to keep them from screen-glued immobility, etc.

Think outside the box

Even in a small yard and with no budget, it is possible to knock together a pair of functional stilts, or construct a twine maze (see yesterday’s illustration). Set out three balls and ask the kids to invent a new game. A bit of originality goes a long way. If a driveway is available, or sidewalks, colored chalks are a cheap investment that can pay off admirably in terms of fresh air activity.

Maybe the kids could spend some outdoor time with a chain-link fence. Have you by any chance saved up used holiday gift-wrap ribbons, in hopes of someday finding a use for them? Do you have a rag bag? Cloth can be torn into strips with ease, and used to weave designs on a fence, as seen in today’s illustration. One or more strips can be attached to a stick, for a child to run around with and wave in the air. Or get hold of some bubble-blowing supplies. As in so many other cases, an online search can reveal inexpensive DIY alternatives to commercial products.

Even if a young person is not crazy about a particular activity for its own sake, any motor skills gained from it are transferable. The use of certain muscles and neural pathways could make the difference between acceptance or rejection in a chosen sport, in the not-too-distant future.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Images by Martin Pettitt/CC BY 2.0, RJ/CCC BY-SA 2.0, Quinn Dombrowski/CCC BY-SA 2.0, Twilight Taggers/CC BY 2.0,

Tough Choices With Wiggle Room

Pat Hartman July 11, 2022 No Comments

Hopefully, all parents want their children to have the best recreational opportunities. For a number of reasons — personal, financial, societal, medical, etc. — the adults in charge of childcare sometimes have to function within less than optimal circumstances. We mentioned Julie Pearson Anderson and Melissa Fuller, who are interested in alleviating or, better yet, preventing the emotional damage that children can experience from confinement and limited social interaction.

They quote a study conducted by the Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health:

As well as improving symptoms of poor mental health during adolescence, there is also evidence that exercise exerts a protective effect and may reduce the incidence of mental illnesses such as depression and psychosis in the future.

The authors quote associate professor of general pediatrics Rebecca Dudovitz, M.D., as saying,

Exercise is a key component for recovering from and preventing obesity, and it’s a key part of coping with and preventing mental health problems.

They make the point that any kind of active play is not only helpful but crucial to the maintenance of both physical and mental health. Exercise does not have to mean specialized equipment or strenuous effort.

And “sports” doesn’t have to mean organized sports… With rising costs and families struggling financially these days, finding low- and no-cost ways of keeping kids active can be key. Getting them moving is what’s important… Walking the dog, biking the trails, running in the sprinklers, playing hoops in the driveway, gardening and yard work…

Yes, kids can be induced to do yard work, at different levels depending on age. Little ones: If pieces of gravel are where they don’t belong, offer a penny or a nickel for each stone returned to the gravel bed, and let the child practice addition to keep track of them. Or just use a point system, with a prize that is not food. (Maybe a small privilege you would have granted anyway, heh-heh.)

At any rate, the object retrieval activity has other uses. Does a tree shed berries whose juice you don’t want to be tracked indoors? Have the little nuisances picked up. If the child goes off-task, who cares? As long as they are moving around and nobody is being hurt, no problem.

Older kids

Shun power tools. Forget about efficiency, or saving time. The whole point here is to encourage and facilitate physical activity. If your family is lucky enough to have grass to take care of, maybe you still have a push lawn mower. And never mind the straight-line, back-and-forth method. Let the kid have fun (see illustration on this page) and then tidy it up the next day.

Teach the kid how to trim a hedge the old-fashioned way, without machinery and with string. Some teens are surprisingly practical. They ask, “When will I use this in life?” No one can say for sure. To learn any skill is an advantage. Some day this person may be an actor, respected for the ability to use hand tools with visual authenticity. They might want to join the Society for Creative Anachronism, or become a professional historical reenactor at a theme park or Renaissance Faire. By identifying secateurs, they might win a respectable amount of money from a quiz show or trivia competition.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Kids and Mental Health: The more they move, the better their mood,” PrestigiousScholarships.com, 06/24/22
Source: “How to Trim a Hedge by Hand,” TheSpruce.com, 06/30/22
Images by sand_and_sky, Julita B.C., Iain Cameron, Hsing Wei/CC BY-SA 2.0

Our Kids and Hobson’s Choice

Pat Hartman July 8, 2022 No Comments

The expression “Hobson’s choice” has been around for a long time, so long that most people don’t even know how it originated or what it means. It is something like being caught “between a rock and a hard place” or “between the devil and the deep blue sea.” Officially, it is the necessity of accepting one of two equally objectionable alternatives.

In this country, we can freely choose to let kids circulate in society, potentially taking on board a case of coronavirus that could kill them or at least horribly complicate their futures by causing long-lasting physical problems, including brain damage.

Or we can freely choose to keep them cooped up as much as possible, potentially endangering their mental health. The difference between the two fates is that physical damage to the brain is not reversible, while emotional damage from sequestration and lack of social interaction can at least be treated, somewhere down the line. But neither course is the one we would choose if more choices were available.

This is the environment in which Julie Pearson Anderson and Melissa Fuller wrote about emotional and mental health among the young:

After more than two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, mental illness and the demand for child psychological services are at an all-time high. Not only did child mental health deteriorate during the pandemic, but childhood obesity rates rose. Experts say much of that increase can be attributed to schools being closed and children not having access to P.E. classes, equipment and play areas they ordinarily would use.

What can help? Physical activity. The authors cite a metastudy published by Sports Medicine, in which 114 other studies were examined. Its “Results” section says,

[S]ignificant associations were found between greater amounts of sedentary behavior and both increased psychological ill-being (i.e. depression) and lower psychological well-being (i.e. satisfaction with life and happiness) in children and adolescents.

There are some differences between children and teens, but overall, between ages 6 and 18, active youngsters show less depression and less psychological distress. They also manifest more positive self-image, more satisfaction with life, more psychological well-being, and more of what is generally recognized as mental health.

Children’s mental health is “in crisis,” according to the American Psychological Association, and “national emergency” is a term used by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Of course, experts hope to see more “school-based mental health interventions” but given recent patterns in public priorities and funding, that seems unlikely to happen.

Meanwhile, we have some suggestions about how to keep kids active even in restricted environments, which may become even more restricted after this period of false optimism. Just because everybody is fed up with COVID, that does not mean COVID is going to tuck its tail between its legs and slink away.

(To be continued…)

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Hobson’s choice,” Merriam-Webster.com, undated
Source: “Kids and Mental Health: The more they move, the better their mood,” PrestigiousScholarships.com, 06/24/22
Source: “Role of Physical Activity and Sedentary Behavior in the Mental Health of Preschoolers, Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review and Meta Analysis,” BachLab.pitt.edu 04/16/19
Image by Emran Kassim/CC BY 2.0

Fat-Shaming Roundup

Pat Hartman July 7, 2022 No Comments

At the end of this page, the visitor will find a dozen or so links to past Childhood Obesity News posts on the subject of fat-shaming, after some remarks about other items that have appeared since that list was compiled.

This is a good place to mention a sassy harangue by a writer known as Soler, that employs some rough language. The impetus for Soler’s explosive self-expression was social media coverage of popular vocal artist Lizzo. The singer was photographed doing something that numerous critics equated with the “mindless glorification” of obesity. She had the unbearable audacity to wear a bikini at the beach. A member of the public complained that the sight of Lizzo was as offensive as gazing upon “open wounds, leprosy, or other diseases.”

Soler’s anger is also provoked by several common practices found in our society, such as judging a person’s health based on their appearance, a habit almost as intrusive and unjustifiable as the common male habit of rating a woman’s appearance on a scale of 1 to 10. In the realm of numbers, Soler reminds readers, “It costs $0.00 to mind your business.”

Seriously worse

But that leads to a societal ill that is infinitely more harmful — medical professionals who do not mind their business, when what they literally get paid for is to provide an informed opinion about their patient’s physical condition. The author gives several examples of women known to her, who have gone to doctors because of various physical problems.

Among a certain (hopefully small) segment of the profession, there is a tendency to dismiss any and all symptoms as resulting from being overweight. There actually are doctors who will tell a person in distress to go away, lose weight, and then come back if the other problem still persists. A misdiagnosis can at least be an honest mistake, but this is something worse. It’s an outright refusal to even attempt a legitimate diagnosis.

Child shaming

A while back, a gym in Texas caught flack for a print advertisement that pictured a boy with the caption, “My fat may be funny to you but it’s killing me,” and a girl with the caption, “It’s hard to be a little girl if you’re not.” Probably the most offense was caused by the repeated word “WARNING!” in red block letters. The ad was widely criticized, especially since the establishment was a franchise of the respected Gold’s Gym chain.

The business issued a public apology and acknowledged that fat-shaming does not really provide motivation to children or adults. Reporter Melissa Stranger elaborated,

People who become the victims of fat shaming or body shaming are more likely to avoid exercise or consume more calories in order to cope with the stress of being fat shamed or body shamed. And in kids, who are still developing ideas of what health looks and feels like, and who are more susceptible to harmful body-image ideals, this is especially detrimental.

Take a look at some of our posts on the subject:

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “The Reason You Hate Fat People Isn’t Because You Care About Their Health,” Medium.com, 02/09/20
Source: “A major gym franchise fat shamed children in its new ads to draw in younger members,” Insider.com, 05/10/17
Image by @WendyMolyneux via Twitter

Displacement — Definitions and Examples

Pat Hartman July 6, 2022 No Comments

In the latest work by Robert Pretlow and Suzette Glasner, “Reconceptualization of eating addiction and obesity as displacement behavior and a possible treatment,” the authors define displacement behavior as…

[… ] a biobehavioral mechanism that allows an animal to deal with situations that cannot readily be faced nor avoided, or that are thwarting.

The reason for talking about this is that it may explain compulsive overeating, sometimes referred to as eating addiction. Dr. Pretlow and his co-author go on to describe the behavior as irrepressible, and elaborate on its cause:

It is thought to be due to rechanneling of overflow brain energy to another drive (e.g., feeding drive) when two drives, e.g., fight or flight, equally oppose each other. Moving the opposing drives out of equilibrium, by resolving the person’s underlying problems/stressful situations, theoretically should mitigate the displacement mechanism and addictive overeating.

It is interesting to look back at previous concepts of displacement behavior and other ideas that have been associated with it. Pioneer ethologist Niko Tinbergen considered the example of two herring gulls both considering the same piece of real estate for their nesting grounds. The supposition here is that each bird has an equal desire to attack the rival, and to run away. Then, one of them starts picking at the grass — or maybe both. A later author explained,

Tinbergen found that this was really part of the pattern of nest-building; and it appeared that when the drive to defend the nesting territory was frustrated by an opposing drive, part of the pent-up “energy” splashed over, so to speak, in isolated actions which were part of the sequence normally expressing quite a different drive, that of building the nest.

On the other hand, building a nest is more closely related to scouting out a good nest location, than it is to anything else, so to describe it as “quite a different drive” seems not quite accurate. And yet, so many in the field insist that displacement activity is, by definition, irrelevant, inconsequential, inappropriate, and out-of-context — just random energy dissipation, without significance. Pet specialist Amy Martin throws this light on it:

Observing a single action, behavior, or posture is not enough information to accurately interpret an animal’s behavior. A displacement activity might indicate eustress, distress, and/or fear… or not.

What the scientist is describing are displacement behaviors. These behaviors are allowing the gulls to avoid conflict. They are a form of clear communication within their species, and the behaviors work for the gulls. Our companion animals are doing this all the time with us, and others at home, but we fail to recognize it.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Reconceptualization of eating addiction and obesity as displacement behavior and a possible treatment,” LinkSpringer.com, 06/22/22
Source: “Doin’ the Displacement,” ConsciousCompanion2012.com/August 2015
Image by Michael Clarke Stuff/CC BY-SA 2.0

Why Else Do Animals Do What They Do?

Pat Hartman July 5, 2022 No Comments

In difficult situations, displacement behavior helps people to cope by reducing stress. It seems that a lot of things have not been definitively figured out yet. For instance, related-study authors Changiz Mohiyeddini and Stuart Semple wrote,

Increased levels of displacement behavior are associated with feelings of anxiety and stress; however, the extent to which displacement behavior, as a short-term behavioral response to emotionally challenging stimuli, influences the subsequent experience of stress remains poorly understood.

Although early ethologists observed animals and then extrapolated to human behavior, it has always been possible to turn that around; to observe humans and extrapolate backward to animal behavior. Some call this anthropomorphizing, or attributing human characteristics to non-humans, and frown upon it.

In an audio presentation of interest to Certified Applied Animal Behaviorists and authorities in related fields, an applied animal behaviorist Patricia McConnell notes that ethologists coined the term “displacement behavior” to refer to out-of-context activities. Again, there is uncertainty about what exactly is going on. McConnell continues:

[Suzanne] Hetts and [Dan] Estep make the excellent point that displacement behavior MAY be a sign of fear or stress… but not necessarily. Take a dog sniffing the ground before greeting another dog for example, often labeled as a “calming signal.” Ethologists would label this as a classic example of a displacement activity – the animal is in some kind of conflict about how to proceed next.

[S]niffing is an example of an animal avoiding conflict with another by avoiding social pressure and giving both dogs time to adjust and settle.

What could be wrong with a delaying tactic that avoids bloodshed? It seems unfair to label this sort of thing as out-of-context, inappropriate, and even wrong. McConnell points out an often-forgotten fact: stress is a neutral term. There is eustress and distress, the difference between a wedding day and a hurricane. McConnell again:

Note that being “stressed” is not inherently a negative state. Stress, if defined and used correctly in the biological sense, refers to being pushed out of a state physiological homeostasis, either by something negative or positive.

A romping puppy confirms that animals can experience both kinds. Another intriguing thought is, “[O]ne single action or posture is never enough to accurately interpret an animal’s behavior.” Although displacement activity is called inappropriate and out-of-context, if we thought we knew everything about why animals do what they do, we would be kidding ourselves.

In “The displacement mechanism: a new explanation and treatment for obesity,” Dr. Pretlow wrote,

The displacement mechanism plays an adaptive role. Yet, if excessively expressed by the animal, from recurring untenable situations, the mechanism may go rogue and become destructive. For example, stressed or socially isolated dogs may lick their paws raw (excessive displacement to the grooming drive), causing significant damage to the paws, termed acral lick disorder.

Veterinarians acknowledge that this disorder may stem from such psychological causes as boredom, insufficient exercise, stress, or anxiety. Still, there are at least nine somatic reasons why some dogs inflict granuloma wounds on themselves, and a range of at least that many lab tests to rule out physical causes. We believe we can figure out why a dog will not give up excessive paw-licking. But maybe he intends to keep it up until someone takes his picture for the cover of DIY Veterinarians Magazine. We are pretty sure that is not the reason, but can we really be 100% certain?

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Displacement behaviour regulates the experience of stress in men,” ResearchGate.net, September 2012
Source: “Stress? Fear? Or ‘Displacement Behavior’?,” PatriciaMcConnell.com, 06/26/16
Source: “Acral Lick Dermatitis (Lick Granuloma) in Dogs,” GreatPetCare.com, 09/15/20
Image by Emanuel Bjurhager/CC BY 2.0

What Is Drive-Reduction Theory?

An incidental question

You Never Know Where It Might Lead

Kitchen table amusements

Music and noise

Useful little abilities

Even Behind Closed Doors

The world’s smallest planetarium

Save that paper

For the Sake of Movement

A little help is better than none

Wiggle Room Strategies

Imagination counts

Think outside the box

Tough Choices With Wiggle Room

Older kids

Our Kids and Hobson’s Choice

Fat-Shaming Roundup

Seriously worse

Child shaming

Displacement — Definitions and Examples

Why Else Do Animals Do What They Do?

Profiles: Kids Struggling with Weight

The Book

About Dr. Robert A. Pretlow

Presentations

Food & Health Resources