We’re all familiar with food porn.
The food industry has done its best to overly glamorize the process of cooking food, eating it, preparing it, the works. The network most guilty of doing so is The Food Network. Featuring numerous shows solely dedicated to edible treats, there is a reason people keep coming back to it. Of course food gives us pleasure, but not the same kind that is being depicted in advertising.
The idea of putting food in this perspective has taken a turn. It is no longer marketers that are attempting to grab our attention. Social media has become an outlet for everyday ordinary food porn created by people like us. The phenomenon has been nicknamed “The Instagram Diet”.
A recent study at BYU that was published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology stated that the foods we see on our news feed might be turning us off from that certain appetite. The observational study suggested that visually observing certain types of foods still gave the viewer a mental satiation close to actually tasting the food, although they were no where near it.
The actual study was performed by collecting 232 people to rate pictures of food, half of sweet and half of salty. At the end of the ratings, each person was offered peanuts. The group that rated salty food was not nearly as excited for the snack as the sweet group was. The conclusion here was that their rating experience satisfied that salty craving, which the “sweet group” didn’t experience.
Although it’s not a certain way to lose weight, this method can surely get rid of some cravings.
I liked this blog post but like some above I find that I cannot really agree. I am majoring in a graphic design field and we are learning currently how to please a viewers eye and what not. We had to take words and find images that had the person who looked at them automatically feel that emotion. For example for comfort I used a blue theme and soft fabrics and one just felt comfy looking at them. It made me want to jump in bed not crave the opposite. So why would the sweet group be more excited about the snack than the salty group? I feel as though we would want what we see otherwise advertisers everywhere would be portraying the opposite of their menus. http://lifehacker.com/5824328/how-advertising-manipulates-your-choices-and-spending-habits-and-what-to-do-about-it
My biggest pet peeve is people instagramming pictures of food. Not that I care what people post, but because everytime I see food especially something good, I want it!!! When we look at pictures of food, the parts in our brain that trigger appetite and reward are set off. Seeing pictures of food increase the desire to eat food, especially similar foods. A study proved this in this article: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/247283.php
Although there was no control group in this study, the study concluded that “These findings suggest that added sweeteners could be one of the main contributors to the obesity epidemic.” (bottom of article)
I think seeing images of food make you want to eat. I find myself looking at food either on instagram or pinterest and just end up wanting to eat!
My biggest pet peeve is people instagramming pictures of food. Not that I care what people post, but because everytime I see food especially something good, I want it!!! When we look at pictures of food, the parts in our brain that trigger appetite and reward are set off. Seeing pictures of food increase the desire to eat food, especially similar foods. A study proved this in this article: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/247283.php
Although there was no control group in this study, the study concluded that “These findings suggest that added sweeteners could be one of the main contributors to the obesity epidemic.” (bottom of article)
I think seeing images of food make you want to eat. I find myself looking at food either on instagram or pinterest and just end up wanting to eat!
This is such an interesting topic. Personally, I follow a lot of Instagram accounts that only post pictures of extremely yummy, mouth watering food and it only makes me hungry the more I look at them. I have heard of this study before and when I was a senior in high school we did a similar experiment in my food and nutrition class. Although it was a much smaller scale, the outcome was very similar as well. I always wondered why looking at pictures of a certain kind of food made you crave others and after reading your article it now makes sense! Here is a website with the best Instagram’s from a single week that depicts “food porn.”
I found your blog post to be very interesting, but I also found myself disagreeing with the study’s findings. Sometimes when I’m online I’ll stumble across delicious looking food, and even though I’m not hungry (or in some cases have just eaten), I’ll find myself craving the food I’m looking at. In my case, I don’t think that looking at pictures of food helps with my cravings, I think it actually makes it worse. According to this article, I’m not alone; looking at pictures of food can actually make you more hungry: http://www.mpg.de/4990409/regulation_eating_behaviour
I found your blog post to be very interesting, but I also found myself disagreeing with the study’s findings. Sometimes when I’m online I’ll stumble across delicious looking food, and even though I’m not hungry (or in some cases have just eaten), I’ll find myself craving the food I’m looking at. In my case, I don’t think that looking at pictures of food helps with my cravings, I think it actually makes it worse. According to this article, I’m not alone; looking at pictures of food can actually make you more hungry: http://www.mpg.de/4990409/regulation_eating_behaviour
I found your blog post to be very interesting, but I also found myself disagreeing with the study’s findings. Sometimes when I’m online I’ll stumble across delicious looking food, and even though I’m not hungry (or in some cases have just eaten), I’ll find myself craving the food I’m looking at. In my case, I don’t think that looking at pictures of food helps with my cravings, I think it actually makes it worse. According to this article, I’m not alone; looking at pictures of food can actually make you more hungry: http://www.mpg.de/4990409/regulation_eating_behaviour
I really liked this blog. I didn’t know there was a study at BYU that tested appetites of people showing sweet and salty goods. It’s so funny because I LOVE food!! I can’t think of anything that will make me turn off. I like trying new things and looking at food pictures. It gives me ideas of a next meal. Something that has always kept me intrigued is The Food Network Site: http://www.foodnetwork.com/ and now that I live in a hall where there is a kitchen, I can’t wait to cook.
Wow I am absolutely amazed by these findings. It’s really ironic because last night as I was hanging out with friends I was craving something sweet. For some reason the subject of food porn came up and we went on twitter to check out their tweets, even though I don’t follow @ItsFoodPorn. My mouth was watering looking at all the different brownies, ice cream and cupcakes and I told my friends I could never follow the account because it would make me hungry all the time. Thinking about it now, after I got off twitter I was no longer craving something sweet. I guess this is why and maybe I should follow the account to help myself do a little less eating when I’m just bored and want something sweet to eat! It’s also funny because in the description of the account it says, “Food food glorious food. Follow me and I promise to make you hungry!” They already have over 400,000 followers and it’d be interesting to see how they feel about it too.
Wow I am absolutely amazed by these findings. It’s really ironic because last night as I was hanging out with friends I was craving something sweet. For some reason the subject of food porn came up and we went on twitter to check out their tweets, even though I don’t follow @ItsFoodPorn. My mouth was watering looking at all the different brownies, ice cream and cupcakes and I told my friends I could never follow the account because it would make me hungry all the time. Thinking about it now, after I got off twitter I was no longer craving something sweet. I guess this is why and maybe I should follow the account to help myself do a little less eating when I’m just bored and want something sweet to eat! They already have over 400,000 followers and it’d be interesting to see how they feel about it too.