If you’re trying to avoid junk food, the last thing you want is to have a picture of it in front of you. You know, tempting you, begging you to go find the real thing and gorge yourself on it until you tip the numbers on your bathroom scale in the wrong direction.
According to researchers who published their findings in Computers In Human Behavior, staring at pictures of the junk food that tempts you might be exactly what you need to get over the craving.
The team found that looking at pictures or videos of overly indulgent food can actually reduce the urge to eat it, with your brain finding some degree of satisfaction by just looking at the junk without having to absorb even one of its hundreds of calories. The effect is tied to something called “cross-modal satiation,” which is where the mere sight of food partially satisfies the craving without eating it, your brain feeling satisfied while your tummy continues to rumble.
Scientists Found an Unexpected Trick for Cutting Junk Food Cravings
The study tracked how people reacted after watching internet food videos, with the food in the videos either being healthy or high-calorie. Dieters, who must’ve been starved and eager for a bounty of calories, gravitated towards the high-calorie, less healthy options, as they clicked more videos and spent more time watching them.
That sounds like they are setting themselves up for sabotage, but the researchers found that when people try to suppress cravings, those thoughts of indulging in the fatty stuff just come back stronger. Telling yourself over and over again that you don’t actually want to eat that triple cheeseburger will just make you really, really want a triple cheeseburger.
But in a controlled lab setting, the researchers found that participants who were told to suppress thoughts about indulgent desserts and ended up watching more fatty food content also went on to eat less actual chocolate when given the opportunity, while reporting feeling less hungry. This meant that the visual exposure was enough to take the edge off the craving.
The same couldn’t be said for healthier foods, and it also didn’t apply to everyone in the study. It was most noticeable in people actively trying to restrict their eating, and especially those prone to mentally pushing food thoughts away. For them, engaging with that naughty, forbidden food content acted more like a pressure-release valve than a trigger.
The experiments only studied the short term and focused mostly on chocolate, with adjustments mostly to younger participants and to controlled environments. The myriad real-world factors that influence our eating decisions are not taken into account, but could obviously skew the results more heavily. So, there are limits to the study that even the researchers admit.
While the study doesn’t cover this at all, to me, all this means is that the term “food porn” is a much more appropriate label than we once thought.
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