Food Porn - How it Affects Your Hunger Hormones

It's a funny term, but it's out there - there's even a wiki definition - food porn is a very real entity that permeates our daily life.  It's tough to get through an hour, let alone a day, without being assailed by all manner of delectable, touched-up photos of mouth watering food in a magazine, on TV, at the grocery store, or just walking by a billboard on the street.


An interesting study from Germany evaluated the response of 8 healthy men to pictures showing food, compared to pictures showing something other than food.  They found that the only known human hunger hormone, ghrelin, was higher during the 30 minutes after the food pictures were presented, compared to the 30 minutes before the pictures were presented; and, that the ghrelin levels after the food pictures were presented were higher than after non food pictures were presented.

So, this shows us that there is a very real hormonal effect to flashy food photos, that drives our hunger and tells us to eat.  As for avoiding them... well, that's the tricky part.  Choosing active pursuits over TV is a good one.   Please leave a comment at the bottom of this blog post to share your ideas!

Dr Sue Pedersen www.drsue.ca © 2013 

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