Teens eat healthy if food is visually appealing, study shows

The study, 'Foodporn for e-Priming Healthy Food Choices Among Adolescents: An Experimental Study Using Appealing Food Imagery', has been published in BMC Public Health.

New Delhi: Making healthy food look like “food porn” encourages teens to choose it, shows a study by ICMR-National Institute of Nutrition. This study also concludes that this strategy can be scaled up by building online communities that share visually appealing, nutritious meals.

The study, ‘Foodporn for e-Priming Healthy Food Choices Among Adolescents: An Experimental Study Using Appealing Food Imagery’, has been published in BMC Public Health.

The study was conducted on 203 adolescents from across the country. For the study, the team categorised 15 food images into three groups: unhealthy food porn (unhealthy food shown in alluring pictures), healthy food porn (healthy food depicted in alluring pictures), and healthy regular (healthy food depicted in regular pictures).

These were then shared on Instagram for 15 days, with a five-item questionnaire to assess choices. “The participants answered the same questionnaire every day for all the images using Google Forms. Hence, in addition to the visual appeal of the image, the questionnaire prompted responses related to the willingness to consume the food (taste perception), affordability, place of consumption, and company or social context,” said the study.

The team created two private Instagram accounts for posting images and circulating questionnaires. They also created four alternate Instagram accounts for liking posts to make them more believable.

Participants were also divided into two groups. One group received nutritional descriptions along with the images, while the other viewed the images without any additional information.

Researchers later conducted in-depth interviews with 19 adolescents.

What interviews revealed

The study found a significant association between how visually appealing adolescents found a food image and their willingness to consume that food. “I think the way you present it plays a huge role in how one would remember it. For example, if you add some
garnishing to the side, add a few sauces; it would look a lot more tempting. And it would have an everlasting impact on someone,” said a 13-year-old girl from Hyderabad.

Participants recorded ice cream among the unhealthy food porn, mixed fruit salad among the healthy food porn and seasonal fruit among the regular food as the tastiest. Even food porn images of millet porridge and chana salad got more positive responses than their core regular counterparts.

“On the other hand, the core regular images of plain nuts and plain curd garnered substantially positive favourable responses
than their foodporn counterparts, while a similar response for fruit in both categories was observed,” said the study.

The study also revealed that how the food was presented changed where people imagined eating it. While plain healthy foods were strongly linked to eating at home, beautifully arranged healthy foods were associated with restaurants and social gatherings, such as dining with friends.

Many also agreed that appealing visuals can steer them towards making healthier choices. “I feel like pictures can influence our food choices. Like whatever content we consume the most, we want to recreate it subconsciously in our real life,” said a 16-year-old girl, also from Hyderabad.