Slimming This simple trick prevents cravings for greasy foods

Easier weight loss with a simple trick?

If you want to lose weight and have problems controlling your consumption of chips or greasy foods, there is a simple trick that will make you less appetite for such unhealthy foods.

The researchers from the University of South Florida found in their recent research that two minutes of inhaling and smelling greasy foods is enough to keep people from eating such a high-calorie meal. The physicians published the results of their study in the English journal "Journal of Marketing Research".

Smelling food can make it easier to lose weight

When we smell and breathe high-fat foods, this initially stimulates appetite. Researchers have now found out, however, that prolonged contact with the odor has a longer-lasting effect. This could be a new way to give people a healthier diet. The effect of these initially appealing flavors is sufficient to trigger a reward in the brain, which then satisfies the consumer. The effect is almost as if we ate something delicious, but without taking in calories.

Fragrances can affect what we eat

Ambient odor can be an effective way to resist cravings for delicious food, says study author Professor Dipayan Biswas of the University of South Florida. Indeed, subtle sensory stimuli, such as fragrances, can influence children's and adults' food choices more effectively than restrictive measures, the expert adds.

Thus, scientists influenced the diet of subjects

By using so-called Aroma Diffusers in a school canteen and a supermarket, the scientists have found that smells of unhealthier foods (pizzas and biscuits) increase the likelihood of a healthy diet. This allows unique new ways to influence the diet of humans. Children could be exposed to the sweet aroma of baked biscuits in a supermarket for two minutes to motivate them to buy and consume fresh fruit. At the participating school canteen in the US, where about 900 children were eating their lunch, the number of unhealthy foods consumed by the flavors of pizza dropped to 21.43 percent. On the other hand, when a smell of apples was spread, it was 36.96 percent and reached 36.54 percent, if no flavors were used at all.

Short impression of odors had the opposite effect

The results of subsequent laboratory tests were consistent with the original findings, and at the same time showed that a brief impression of odors had the opposite effect: those who were only briefly exposed to the smell of biscuits chose an unhealthy food option about twice as often compared to subjects who did exposed to the smell for more than two minutes. It's almost as if a quick smell of greasy flavors affect the brain so that sufferers are encouraged to try, whereas prolonged smelling has an effect similar to eating the food. For the moment, this is just a hypothesis about what's going on in the brain, but other studies have also shown that our different senses can affect each other, and that the sense of smell and smell are closely related.

Odors affect the reward center in the brain?

This could be the case because odors associated with enjoyable nutrition satisfy the reward circuitry in the brain, which in turn reduces the urge for actual consumption of stimulants, the authors of the study explain. Adding olfactory inputs to reward structures and areas that represent cravings in the brain, rather than eating unhealthy foods, may allow for a healthier diet, the experts add. (As)