NCT03731663: FEECAEE

The Effect of Exposure to Food in Social Networks on Food Cravings and External Eating

Completed NA Last updated 6 November 2018

What this trial tests

NA trial testing Exposure to pictures of appetizing food (known as Foodporn) in Eating Habits and Behaviors, (UMLS) in 165 participants. Completed in 1 August 2018.

Timeline

12 April 2018

Primary endpoint
1 August 2018

1 August 2018

Quick facts

Lead sponsor	Ruppin Acdemic Center
Phase	NA
Status	Completed
Study type	INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation	randomized
Design	parallel
Masking	single
Primary purpose	basic science
Enrollment	165
Start date	12 April 2018
Primary completion	1 August 2018
Estimated completion	1 August 2018
Sites	1 location across Israel

Drugs / interventions tested

• Exposure to pictures of appetizing food (known as Foodporn)
• Exposure to neutral pictures

Conditions studied

• Eating Habits and Behaviors, (UMLS) — all drugs for Eating Habits and Behaviors, (UMLS) →

Sponsor

Ruppin Acdemic Center

Who can join

Adults 18 to 35, any sex, with Eating Habits and Behaviors, (UMLS). Patients with the condition only — healthy volunteers not accepted.

Sponsor's own description

Background: Food practices are socially, culturally and historically embedded in everyday life. It is a common notion that people eat due to internal state of physiologic hunger but in fact the drive behind eating behaviors is much more complex. We eat, inter alia, because of our response to external cues such as the sight and smell of food, or external eating. Another related concept is food cravings: intense irresistible desires to consume a particular food that is distinct from hunger. Both external eating and food cravings have been associated with impulsivity, eating disorders and obesity. During recent decades the role of the media, and recently of the social media in our lives has grown significantly, and their influence on culture and society is now huge. A common activities on social media sites (SNS) is food viewing and posting pictures of tempting food, known as food porn. Food porn has been found to correlate with eating patterns and food-related attention and reward bias. The aim of this study is to conduct a controlled manipulation that may help us deduce causality as well as association. The investigators postulate that (1) viewing pictures of appetizing food will lead to higher rates of reported external eating and food craving than viewing pictures that are not food related; (2) Viewing these appetizing food pictures will lead participants to order different kinds of food and greater amounts; (3) The effect of viewing food pictures on external eating, food cravings and food orders will be greater for participants with high disturbed eating, then for participants without disturbed eating.

Method: After providing informed consent, 150 female participants (aged 18-35) will self report on demographic variables, SNS food preoccupation and disturbed eating (EAT-26). They will then be randomly assigned to watch either a food porn or control video. They will complete measures of food cravings (FCQ-S) and external eating (DEBQ) after watching the video and asked to order food they would like to eat from a virtual menu.)

Publications & conference data

No peer-reviewed publications indexed yet for this trial. Completed trials usually publish results within 12-18 months.