Ever wonder why you randomly crave that Big Mac after seeing it advertised during your daily commute? Ever heard someone say you shouldn’t go grocery shopping while you’re hungry?
Turns out that junk food can be twice as distracting to people trying to complete a task than other foods.
The study, published by Johns Hopkins University, gave participants a computer task to complete, having nothing to do with food. During the task, photos flashed on the screen for about 125 milliseconds. The photos included random objects, such as bicycles, foods such as carrots and apples, and then junk foods, such as candies and chips.
The results were clear: when images of high-fat, high-calorie foods appeared, participants were twice as distracted as they were when photos of healthy foods appeared.
The researchers also took another route with the experiment. Before the task, they gave each participant candy bars. When this happened, people were no more distracted by junk food photos than any other photos.
After eating, the participants were less distracted by food and were able to more easily complete the task in front of them.
The task had nothing to do with food at all, which is maybe why advertisements for food can be found everywhere, working as a tool to get you to purchase that Big Mac.
