Watching cooking shows leads to weight gain
By Roberto A. Ferdman, Washington Post
Food television has been something of a revelation. As Americans cook less and less, they seem compelled to watch people cook more and more. The mouthwatering viewer experience — which features cooking shows and competitions, food travel adventures and other gustatory escapades — has captivated people around the country.
The Food Network, the genre’s most coveted brand, alone gathers an average audience of more than 1 million viewers each night. And it’s just one of a growing number of networks that routinely feature series about food and eating. Chefs — some professionally trained, others less formally practiced — are increasingly bringing new, exciting and delicious culinary ideas into living rooms.
Mostly women watch these shows, often to learn specific cooking skills. But when people watch more of these food shows on television, it turns out they’re also gaining more weight, according to a new study by researchers at Cornell University. And they’re even more likely to gain weight if they also cook.
The study included 500 participants which isn’t too bad. All, however were women between 20 and 35. It would be interesting to know if the results would hold up for middle aged and older women and men as well. Presumably the longer a person has cooked, the more likely he or she is to know what a healthy amount of food is.
(I admit people tend to gain weight through the young adult and middle aged years, but usually over a considerable period of time.)
Good food photography can stimulate the appetite whether or not you are hungry. However, unappealing depictions of food can do the opposite. Food seen on cooking shows is usually beautifully photographed whereas amateur snapshots taken of food for newspaper articles or restaurant advertising can make someone run the other way.
It’s not the content of the shows at all. It’s the fact that the people are sitting around watching TV. Try the study with other shows and they’ll probably show the same results.
This world needs to face the reality that you can’t sit on your couch all day watching television and eating junk food without getting fat. When people had to do hard physical labor every day just to stay alive, guess how many overweight people there were. Not many.