Food photos on social media might ruin your appetite

You are having dinner in a restaurant. The waiter brings your food to the table and it looks so amazing, you upload a picture on Instagram to show your friends. No harm done, right? Well according to a new study, you may have just put your friends off their food.

Researchers from Brigham Young University (BYU) and the University of Minnesota say their study, published in The Journal of Consumer Psychology, shows that looking at too many pictures of food can make it less enjoyable to eat.

"In a way, you're becoming tired of that taste without even eating the food," says Ryan Elder, professor at BYU and co-author of the study. "It's sensory boredom - you've kind of moved on. You don't want that taste experience anymore."

The researchers recruited 232 participants who were asked to carry out experiments that involved viewing and rating pictures of various foods.

In one experiment, half of the participants were asked to look at 60 pictures of sweet foods, including cake, truffles and chocolates. The other half of the participants were asked to look at 60 pictures of salty foods, including chips, pretzels and French fries.

Both groups rated each food based on how appetizing they thought it was.

All subjects were then required to eat a salty food, specifically, peanuts. They then rated how much they enjoyed eating the peanuts.

[from Medical News Today]