An example of food porn: a double bacon juicy cheeseburger with fries.

I had come across this blog on the foot network about recent research revealing significant “physiological and neurophysiological changes seen in response to food images.” Food porn is basically self-explanatory. It is essentially the visually pleasing and stimulating images of delicious-looking, usually unhealthy (high sugar desserts or high fat meals) foods. This interesting research describes the brain’s reaction to seeing food porn, and why this may have detrimental side effects.

As we have learned, when seeing images of food we enjoy, parts of our brain associated with hunger light up, thus making us want want to devour these foods. Since most food porn images are unhealthy, looking at food porn is potentially dangerous. While I was reading this blog, there was a slideshow of delicious-looking foods that actually made me want to go out and eat them.

An example of healthier food porn: popularly trending now, chia seed breakfast yogurt and fruit bowls.

The blog I read acknowledges the research about how food porn has the potential to increase eating, which could lead to overeating; however this blog also proposes a new idea. The idea that if individuals see food porn of healthy food, this may make them want to eat the healthy food. This concludes that whatever kind of food the viewer is seeing, that is the kind of food they are going to want to eat.