heyNew evening, at home. You are sitting comfortably on the couch, watching your favorite TV show. An ad comes up, showing a scrumptious burger in all its glory. The camera zooms in on each ingredient: the crisp lettuce; tender meat; rich, creamy sauces; Crunchy french fries, and a person enjoying this delightful flavor range. You think to yourself that your diet is about to take a hit. But we beg to differ.
In a series of studies published in Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, we saw commercials showing people eating junk food to encourage people to eat less. Although it may seem counterintuitive, these findings are consistent with previous research. mental imagery, Recent studies suggest that simply imagining performing tasks or experiencing emotions activates neural networks similar to those associated with their actual performance or experience.
What happens when we imagine ourselves eating?
The images we are exposed to throughout our lives have the power to shape our experiences to a remarkable degree. According to neuroimage studiesSimply seeing someone being hit with a hammer activates neural networks in our brains associated with pain. As a result, these images will trigger emotions and behaviors corresponding to feelings of pain.
Such effects also extend to food consumption. The field of consumption imagery refers to rich images of food consumption – for example, a Advertisement Showing a close-up of a pizza and someone eating it. some studies have also indicated that photographs of consumption may falsely remind people that they had eaten the food on display.
why is it important? This is important because just thinking that we have eaten something can make us feel full. in 2010, researchers People were asked to post a picture of themselves eating 3 or 30 M&M’s. Then he gave them a bowl of sweets to eat. People who imagined themselves eating 30 button-shaped chocolates felt satiated and ate less sweets than those who imagined eating only 3. With our research, we decided to take this question to the next level and test whether the effect lasts when people see someone else eat in an ad.
If you’re dieting, watching someone else eat makes you eat less
We invited 132 dieting students to our laboratory at the Grenoble Ecole de Management to watch an advertisement. half of them saw M&M’s ad Filled with fantasies of consumption: sweets, colors and the person who eats them. The other half of the students saw an advertisement with two animated M&M’s are in a supermarket, devoid of consumption imagery. Then we gave each student a 70 gram cup of M&M’s and told them to eat their fill. Among students, those who viewed an ad with M&M’s consumption imagery ate less of the sweets than students who did not see the ad.
We followed this study up with another study where 130 students looked at an advertisement for a hamburger, Of the volunteer pool, half were asked to imagine themselves eating a hamburger, and the other half were asked to imagine filming it. The students then received a silver bag of chocolate-coated biscuit sticks to eat. People who saw the ad and imagined eating a hamburger ate fewer chocolate-coated biscuits than those who imagined filming it.
Both studies are evidence that the sight of someone eating junk food or junk food alone is enough to put off dieters, at least for a time.
How can dieting campaigns help you eat less?
In the next study, we tested whether we could use these findings to promote healthy eating. We predicted that healthy food promotional campaigns heavy on unhealthy consumption imagery would have a strong impact on dieters. We created four ads to encourage healthy eating:
In total, 594 US adults were recruited to participate in our online study. Each participant was randomly selected to view one of four commercials. Then we asked them to imagine that you are about to have breakfast and you open a bag of chips. There are 20 chips in the bag. How many potato chips would you like to eat now?”
Those who viewed the campaign that required them to imagine themselves eating french fries indicated a desire to eat fewer chips than those who were exposed to the french fries campaign without consumption imagery. People who imagined themselves eating an apple were more likely to gorge on potato chips than those who imagined themselves eating french fries.
Read also: Study reveals how a high-fat diet has a dramatic effect on metabolism