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Watching videos about chocolate cake, burgers and other junk foods might sound like a bad idea for anyone trying to diet - but new research suggests it could actually help some people resist cravings.
Researchers from the University of Bristol in England and the University at Buffalo in New York found that people actively trying to suppress food cravings were more likely to spend time watching indulgent food content online - yet ended up eating less of it afterward.
"It may sound counterintuitive, but our findings show that people, particularly those trying to control their diet, can use visual food content as a self-regulation tool," lead author Dr. Esther Kang of the University of Bristol said in a statement.
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The motivation behind the study was the growing prevalence of food content in digital media and the assumption it promotes overeating, Kang told Fox News Digital.
"At the same time, many individuals in modern society are actively trying to restrict their food intake," she added. "We wanted to understand how these two trends interact and whether digital food content could play a more nuanced role in self-regulation."
The research, published in March in the journal Computers in Human Behavior, included several experiments involving 840 participants ages 19 to 77.
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In one experiment where participants viewed short food clips showing both high-calorie and lower-calorie chocolate desserts, dieters spent about 30% longer looking at the unhealthier options than non-dieters did.
But when later presented an actual bowl of chocolates, the dieters consumed less of it than non-dieters.
Researchers said the behavior may reflect what they call "cross-modal satiation," meaning visual exposure to tempting foods can partially satisfy the desire to eat them.
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The findings challenge the common assumption that digital food content inevitably encourages overeating, researchers said.
"For individuals who are actively trying to control their eating, viewing such content may partially satisfy cravings and reduce subsequent intake," Kang told Fox News Digital. "In everyday life, this indicates that brief and mindful engagement with food imagery may help some dieters manage cravings."
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The study, however, has some limitations.
The experiments measured short-term behavior in controlled settings, including a lab test focused only on chocolate - and did not show whether the effect lasts over time or translates into real-world dieting success.
Kang noted that while the results were consistent across experiments, they reflect short-term behavior in controlled settings and should not be overgeneralized without further research.
Lori Bohn, a California-based board-certified psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner and medical director at Voyager Recovery Center, said the findings make sense in some contexts. (She was not involved with the new research.)
"This research shows us that motivation does matter; when a person is intentionally dieting, they're likely to use these visual cues as tools rather than as stimuli for excessive consumption," Bohn told Fox News Digital.
She added that simply looking at foods can help reduce cravings because the brain starts to feel like you've already experienced eating them.
But Bohn cautioned that the effect may not work for everyone.
"There are individuals - those struggling with impulsive eating or binge patterns - for whom viewing high-palatability food video content will actually enhance cravings as opposed to decreasing them," she said.
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Bohn added that watching food videos may serve as a temporary coping tool for some people, but that this should be paired with balanced meals, awareness of emotional triggers and enough flexibility, so that "forbidden foods" do not gain too much psychological power.
