Food cues can either be a good thing or a dangerous thing in reference to our eating habits, but as long as we are able to identify the negative cues, it is easier for us to substitute it with positive cues. Some cues include seeing/smelling food, specific food labels, time of day, seeing a person we usually eat meals with, and being in places related to food. After discussing in class what a food cue was, I realized how these cues influence my daily life, without even thinking about it.

First of all, a very common food cue for not only myself I’m sure, is the time of day you eat. On Mondays and Wednesdays right after my 11:10 class and Tuesdays and Thursdays after my 12:50 class  it is a must to stop in the cafeteria for lunch. On some days I am not even hungry but because of this food cue, my body tells me the second class is over it is time for lunch. It is amazing how our bodies are programmed to signal that it is time to eat. Moreover, whenever I see the usual people I eat meals with here in college, my body alerts me to make my way over to the cafeteria. Lastly, a very common food cue for me is that of being in places related to food. Sometimes a friend will ask me to sit with them in Hawks Nest just so they don’t have to be alone and even though I am not hungry I start to munch on some of their food and even proceed to buy my own meal.

These are all common food cues that each one of us experience every day. Due to the fact that we are now in college and we do not have our parents putting dinner on the table for us and told to eat at a certain time, we often eat because we are bored and in times when we are not even hungry. All of these food cues are caused by Pavlovian Association because we become conditioned to these food cues.