Sharing Food Photos Leads to Weight Gain... "It Takes Longer to Feel Full"

The Brain's Perception Process Changes, Increasing Calorie Craving

(Photo by Getty Images)

[Asia Economy Senior Reporter Jinsoo Lee] People who take photos of appetizing food with their smartphones before eating and upload them to social networking sites (SNS) like Instagram are prone to gaining weight.

Researchers at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, Georgia, USA reported in the January 2022 issue of the academic journal Appetite that people who take photos of their food before eating and upload them to SNS take longer to feel full and tend to eat more.

Every year, billions of food photos are uploaded to SNS. It is known that about 70% of the so-called "Millennial generation," born in the 1980s and 1990s, habitually upload photos of their food to SNS before eating.

There is also an advantage to this. The food appears more delicious. This is because the brain focuses more on the smell and taste of the food during the process of taking photos. However, some restaurants prohibit taking photos of food, citing reasons such as disturbing other customers or the food getting cold.

The researchers at Georgia Southern University divided 145 volunteer students into two groups for an experiment. Both groups were given cheese crackers to eat, but one group was instructed to take photos before eating and upload them to SNS.

The researchers asked the students how much they liked the crackers and whether they wanted to eat more immediately after eating the crackers. The results showed that the group who took and uploaded photos of the crackers had higher satisfaction with the crackers and wanted to eat more compared to the group that did not.

The researchers speculated that taking photos of food first changes the brain's perception process of the food, leading to a craving for more calories. The memory of the food and the act of recording the food consumption process itself may influence the amount of food intake.

According to the researchers, this tendency was more pronounced among volunteers who ate fewer crackers than others. Therefore, the researchers advised that people who try to eat less should avoid the behavior of taking photos before eating.