How Digital Food Affects Our Analog Lives: The Impact of Food Photography on Healthy Eating Behavior

Research output: Contribution to journalReviewResearchpeer-review

Obesity continues to be a global issue. In recent years, researchers have started to question the role of our novel yet ubiquitous use of digital media in the development of obesity. With the recent COVID-19 outbreak affecting almost all aspects of society, many people have moved their social eating activities into the digital space, making the question as relevant as ever. The bombardment of appetizing food images and photography – colloquially referred to as “food porn” – has become a significant aspect of the digital food experience. This review presents an overview of whether and how the (1) viewing, (2) creating, and (3) online sharing of digital food photography can influence consumer eating behavior. Moreover, this review provides an outlook of future research opportunities, both to close the gaps in our scientific understanding of the physiological and psychological interaction between digital food photography and actual eating behavior, and, from a practical viewpoint, to optimize our digital food media habits to support an obesity-preventive lifestyle. We do not want to rest on the idea that food imagery’s current prevalence is a core negative influence per se. Instead, we offer the view that active participation in food photography, in conjunction with a selective use of food-related digital media, might contribute to healthy body weight management and enhanced meal pleasure.

Original languageEnglish
Article number634261
JournalFrontiers in Psychology
Volume12
ISSN1664-1078
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2021
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This research project (PN: 32764) was supported by the Graduate School of Technical Sciences, Aarhus University (GSTS), the

Funding Information:
We would like to thank Signe Lund Mathiesen for providing input to visualizations, and Reto Hofstetter for his general insights about the research topic. Furthermore, we would like to thank the Sino-Danish Center of Education and Research and CiFOOD Aarhus University Center for Innovative Food Research for their financial support of this research.

Funding Information:
We would like to thank Signe Lund Mathiesen for providing input to visualizations, and Reto Hofstetter for his general insights about the research topic. Furthermore, we would like to thank the Sino-Danish Center of Education and Research and CiFOOD Aarhus University Center for Innovative Food Research for their financial support of this research. Funding. This research project (PN: 32764) was supported by the Graduate School of Technical Sciences, Aarhus University (GSTS), the Sino-Danish Center of Education and Research (SDC), and Aarhus University?s Centre for Innovative Food Research (CiFOOD).

Publisher Copyright:
© Copyright © 2021 Andersen, Byrne and Wang.

    Research areas

  • commensality, food intake, food photography, food porn, grounded cognition, social media

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