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A study by Brigham Young University’s School of Management conducted on 232 students, were asked to rate photos of food by how tasty they looked. About half of them were given photos of sweet treats, some looked at salty photos which had 60 Instagrams worth of each.
While finalizing the experiment the students were given peanuts and the ones who were looking at the salty snacks responded by saying they enjoyed the peanuts less.
Professor Ryan Elder, who co-authored the study, said, “You’re becoming tired of that taste without even eating the food,” which evidently fits the theories on satiation.
“It’s sensory boredom. You’ve kind of moved on. You don’t want that taste experience anymore.” the professor added.
Co-author Jeff Larsen added, “Even I felt a little sick to my stomach during the study after looking at all the sweet pictures we had.”
Larsen suggested that by looking at dozens of photos a day of awesome food you end up having a weakness for it. The findings of the study by the authors cautions that you really have to look at a large amount of photos of a particular food before you get turned off by it.
Basically you have to look at a lot of food feeds to get the effect, of course and no one said dieting was meant to be that easy.
So next time you might consider your Social media friends taste buds before you post that photo of awesome food on your social media feed.
