You’ve heard about eating smaller meals, cutting out sugar and taking regular walks to shed the extra pounds.
But now scientists say just staring at pictures of the food you crave can help suppress appetite and stimulate weight loss.
Researchers in Denmark found that when people looked at 30 images of an M&M for at least two seconds per image and “alively” imagined eating the candy, they felt more full and wanted less of the food afterwards.
They were compared to a same group of people who were only shown pictures of the same food three times.
The scientists hypothesized that the effects stimulated an area of the brain linked to appetite, making someone feel like they’d already eaten the food. increases satiety and may help you lose weight with minimal effort.
The images above are from the first experiment. The first picture is a picture of the orange M&M that was shown to the participants. They had to look at this picture three or 30 times for at least two seconds each time. After the experiment, participants were then shown pictures of bowls with one to ten M&Ms in them (the second and third pictures show the bowls with one or ten M&Ms) and asked to choose one that represented how many M&Ms they wanted. The results showed that participants were happier and wanted fewer M&Ms when they viewed the images 30 times
To vary the experiment, participants were then shown images of different colored M&Ms (top left image) and, to elicit a sweeter taste response, different colored Skittles (bottom left). After viewing these images either three or 30 times, they were again shown the bowls of M&Ms or, in row three, Skittles and asked to choose from one to ten how many they wanted. The results of these experiments agreed with those of the first experiment
PhD student Tjark Anderson, a food scientist at the university who led the research, said: “In our experiment, we showed that when participants saw the same food image 30 times, they felt more satiated than they did before they saw the image. “
He added, “You’re going to get a physiological response to something you’ve only thought about.”
“That’s why we can feel completely full without eating anything.”
In the study, published in the journal Appetite, the researchers recruited more than 1,000 people who were divided into three groups for separate experiments.
In the first experiment, participants were shown a picture of an orange M&M either three times or 30 times.
They had to look at each image for at least two seconds while “alively” imagining eating the food.
Participants were then asked how full they felt and how many M&Ms they would like to consume.
The results showed that those who saw the images only three times said they wanted to eat an M&M significantly more often than those who saw them 30 times.
They also asked for more M&Ms, an average of 6.2 out of 10 possible, compared to an average of 5.7 in the group that saw the picture more often.
In the second part of the study, the scientists showed the images of M&Ms three or 30 times again—this time, however, they varied the color of the candy.
This was to test whether seeing different colors changes the brain’s response to the food stimulus.
However, the scientists found no difference for the first time. The results showed that people who only saw the images three times felt less saturated and wanted more M&Ms.
In the third arm, the M&Ms have been replaced with multicolored Skittles as they taste different depending on the color and have a sweet taste.
However, the results were still the same as in the previous experiment.
Discussing the results, Mr. Andersen said, “If color wasn’t a factor, imagine the taste.” [we thought]. but we didn’t find a big effect here either.”
Experts theorized that looking at images of food stimulated areas in the brain associated with satiety, or feeling full, which led to a decrease in appetite. This is called grounded cognition theory.
Previous research has also shown that looking at an image of something repeatedly can lead to habituation or a diminished response to it, resulting in less interest in the item.
It was also suggested that viewing pictures of food could be viewed as a form of gratification or as a temporary fulfillment of a person’s desire for food.
The researchers suggested that people trying to lose weight could be repeatedly shown photos of food to help suppress their appetite.
Mr Andersen said an app could be developed to curb cravings.
“Imagine you were to develop an app based on a Google search,” he said.
“Let’s say you wanted pizza.” You open the app. Select pizza and lots of photos of pizza will appear while imagining eating them.
“That way, you might feel full and maybe just stop wanting pizza.”
According to a 2016 study, the average person saw about 6.1 food-related posts every 12 hours while using social media.
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