Other People's Faces May Affect the Food We Hate
Whether we like it or not, many of us will have found ourselves influenced by others when it comes to our likes and dislikes.
It often happens when we're young — such as when the band your friend likes becomes your favorite too.
And according to a new study, it still affects us as adults, and even influences the way we feel about food.
Researchers from the UK wanted to find out how people's facial expressions while eating vegetables affected the feelings of any people watching them.
So they got 205 young adult women to watch a video of other adults eating raw broccoli.
The people in the video reacted with either a positive, negative or neutral facial expression as they ate.
You can probably imagine what a negative facial expression would look like if you've seen children's disgusted faces when given any food they don't like!
And when the adults saw the negative expressions, they said it made them like broccoli less.
However, they also said it didn't make them any less likely to want to eat it.
Interestingly, it didn't work the other way around. When the participants saw people reacting with a positive facial expression, it didn't make them like broccoli more or make them want to eat it.
That may be bad news for parents who like to try to encourage their children to eat vegetables by demonstrating their own enjoyment!
However, the study would suggest that parents still shouldn't be showing disgust if they want their children to eat their broccoli!
