Does watching TV make you hungrier? science answers

Snacks in front of the TV have always been a very popular habit

• Eating while watching a movie or TV series is a comfortable practice for humans
• As a snack or a full meal, most people eat in front of the TV
• Chewing on something in front of the TV is a phenomenon that experts define as a “distraction appetite.”
• Spending hours watching audiovisual content can increase the feeling of hunger
• This means that a person searches for food and eats more and more, sometimes out of boredom

Sitting in front of the TV and having a meal or snack after a long day is a popular pastime. With streaming services that automatically play every episode of a TV series, many viewers don’t burn even the few calories needed to reach for the remote control.

It often happens that you are sitting in front of the TV screen and feel hungry based on what you are watching. The more relaxed you are, the greater the noticeable stimulation. Faced with this phenomenon, the experts question only one: Does watching TV stimulate our appetite?

According to the Cleveland Clinic, television is not so much an “appetite stimulant” as a “distraction” to the latter.

When we are in front of a movie, we participate in watching the audiovisual content in question, which means that we pay less attention to the neural and “hungry” signals that normally guide a human’s sense of satiety. In short, we are engaging in passive food consumption.

Eating in front of the TV increases hunger: a study

In 2015, a study was published in International Journal of Communication and Health He interviewed 591 University of Houston students. Research has shown that the more young people watch TV, the more snacks they have.

In addition, experts also found that increased vision was associated with a “fatal” perception of healthy eating (boys’ habit of snacking and mostly unhealthy high-glycemic foods) and poor knowledge of food.

Scientists also argue that some people may let their feeling of hunger affect their feeling of hunger based on the duration of the content of a particular movie. For example, if you are watching an episode of friends (which never lasts more than half an hour) You may eat less than in front of a full movie.

In 2013 a study was published in the journal appetite Examination of a group of 80 people. The sample was divided into two parts: half of them asked to watch a cooking program, and the other half to watch a nature documentary.

Then, equal amounts of chocolate-covered candy, cheese, and carrots were given to both groups. The researchers found that the first group of spectators tended to eat more chocolate-covered candy than the second group.

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Some scientific investigations have also questioned the harm caused by “distracting” snacks, concluding that if eaten in moderation, they will not particularly harm human health.