How to feel more full without eating anything.
Looking at pictures of food on a phone is enough to satisfy hunger and could be used as a weight loss technique, research suggests.
People who saw the same image of a sweet food 30 times felt more full without actually eating anything.
It is because how we think about food has a large effect on appetite.
Dr Tjark Andersen, the study’s first author, said:
“In our experiments, we showed that when the participants saw the same food picture 30 times, they felt more satiated than before they had seen the picture.
The participants who were shown the picture many times also chose a smaller portion than those who had only seen the picture three times, when we subsequently asked about the size of portion they wanted.”
The reason people can feel satisfied without eating anything is because thinking about something, such as eating, is like doing it.
In contrast, how we think about food can also make us want more, despite already being satisfied.
Dr Andersen explained:
“Your appetite is more closely linked with your cognitive perception than most of us think.
How we think about our food is very important.
Studies have shown that if you make people aware of different colors of Jelly Beans, even if they have eaten all they can in red Jelly Beans, will still want the yellow ones.
Even if both colors taste completely the same.”
In that case it is thinking about the variety or novelty of the ‘yellow ones’ that makes people want more, not hunger.
How many images?
This is not the first study to show that looking at images of food reduces hunger and reduces the pleasure from eating.
However, what Dr Andersen and colleagues wanted to explore was how many and what types of images work best:
“We know from previous studies that images of different types of food don’t have the same effect on satiety.
That’s why you can really feel full after the main course but still have room for dessert.
Sweet things are a completely different type of food.”
Dr Andersen’s online experiments included over 1,000 people shown pictures of M&Ms and Skittles.
The results showed that seeing two or three images of a food makes people want them more.
However, seeing these sweet foods 30 times reduced their appetite.
Weight loss technique?
Looking at images of food as a weight loss technique, then, is only likely to be effective if, firstly, one looks at enough pictures.
A few images makes people want the foods more.
Secondly, looking at images will have to stop you beginning a meal.
Dr Andersen explained:
“You won’t save many calories unless you completely refrain from starting a meal.
But perhaps the method can be used for this as well.
It’d be interesting to investigate.”
Dr Andersen imagines an app that might help satiate hunger:
“Think if you developed an app based on a Google search. Let’s say you wanted pizza.
You open the app.
Choose pizza—and it shows a lot of photos of pizza while you imagine eating it. In this way, you could get a sense of satiety and maybe just stop wanting pizza.”
Related
- Playing a simple game on a phone can help to reduce food cravings.
- The best way to deal with food cravings is to accept them.
- …and here are 10 more techniques to stop food cravings.
The study was published in the journal Appetite (Andersen et al., 2023).
