The Effect of Exposure to Food in Social Networks on Food Cravings and External Eating

Summary

Background: Food practices are socially, culturally and historically embedded in everyday life. It is a common notion that people eat due to internal state of physiologic hunger but in fact the drive behind eating behaviors is much more complex. We eat, inter alia, because of our response to external cues such as the sight and smell of food, or external eating. Another related concept is food cravings: intense irresistible desires to consume a particular food that is distinct from hunger. Both external eating and food cravings have been associated with impulsivity, eating disorders and obesity. During recent decades the role of the media, and recently of the social media in our lives has grown significantly, and their influence on culture and society is now huge. A common activities on social media sites (SNS) is food viewing and posting pictures of tempting food, known as food porn. Food porn has been found to correlate with eating patterns and food-related attention and reward bias. The aim of this study is to conduct a controlled manipulation that may help us deduce causality as well as association. The investigators postulate that (1) viewing pictures of appetizing food will lead to higher rates of reported external eating and food craving than viewing pictures that are not food related; (2) Viewing these appetizing food pictures will lead participants to order different kinds of food and greater amounts; (3) The effect of viewing food pictures on external eating, food cravings and food orders will be greater for participants with high disturbed eating, then for participants without disturbed eating.

Method: After providing informed consent, 150 female participants (aged 18-35) will self report on demographic variables, SNS food preoccupation and disturbed eating (EAT-26). They will then be randomly assigned to watch either a food porn or control video. They will complete measures of food cravings (FCQ-S) and external eating (DEBQ) after watching the video and asked to order food they would like to eat from a virtual menu.)

Conditions

• Eating Habits and Behaviors, (UMLS)

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Exposure to pictures of appetizing food (known as Foodporn)

\- Participants allocated to the experimental group will watch a 3 minute video presenting a series of pictures of appetizing foods. An audio of a young adult describing herself eating these foods during a trip to London will be played.

BEHAVIORAL

Exposure to neutral pictures

Participants allocated to the control group will watch a 3 minute video presenting a series of control pictures of tourist attractions in London. An audio of a young adult describing herself visiting these sites during a trip will be played.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Ruppin Acdemic Center

  lead OTHER

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

BASIC_SCIENCE

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

35 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2018-04-12

Primary Completion

2018-08-01

Completion

2018-08-01

Countries

• Israel