Why are so many people keen on “watching others eat”? What’s so attractive about eating broadcasts?

(Referring to the discussion of normal mukbang content, and the curious mukbang content will not be discussed)

a Emotional companionship

When eating alone, watch delicious food Mukbang is like having a food friend, it has become a way to soothe the soul.

Especially for friends who live alone in big cities, it is really lonely to go back to your rental house at night and order takeout to eat alone. For our culture, eating has a certain social and fair nature. We still prefer to have someone to eat with us.

When we are not accompanied by close relationships/relatives, and come out of a busy office and return to someone’s home, this kind of environmental contrast and emotional loss will give people a stronger sense of loneliness. . Mukbang, on the other hand, satisfies the psychological need of "wanting to eat with others" to a certain extent and provides a sense of companionship.

b Peeping desire & curiosity

Sometimes we are really curious about what others are eating (for example, I will ask around what everyone ordered during meals every day in the studio) Takeout)

And mukbang satisfies the voyeuristic desire of the audience to a certain extent. If you can interact while watching the live broadcast of mukbang, the distance will be greatly shortened. It feels like everyone is eating together. Eat and chat together.

Of course, it is not ruled out that some people are watching with a curious mentality, such as "I want to see how much he can eat" "How can he eat so much and still be so thin?" "When did he eat?" You can eat fat" kind of mentality of watching a good show.

I also wrote an article before about why big eaters don’t gain weight by eating. You can click here ~ Eat 10,000 calories and still have a slender body | Are big eaters really talented?

c Release Stress

The sound of chewing is like white noise, which really relieves stress.

In mukbang, the table full of hungry food, the expressions of enjoying eating, and the sound of chewing all have a certain stress-reducing effect. Just like the white noise we usually listen to, through the dual effects of vision and hearing, it moderately stimulates the brain and makes us feel relieved from stress.

d Compensatory feeling of fullness, give yourself some psychological comfort

The compensatory feeling is like looking at plum blossoms to quench thirst (this sounds a bit miserable), especially for some people who are losing weight.

As soon as it’s time for dinner, it’s time to “look at the plum blossoms”. Struggling between the choice of good food and a good figure every day, watching anchors devouring "sinful foods" that are high in fat and calories and that they want to eat but dare not eat will give some people a certain sense of satisfaction.

Some anchors not only eat it for you to watch, but also chew it for you to listen to. The immersive experience will give people a sense of immersion. By watching "others eating" and listening to the "sound of chewing", we can get a kind of vicarious satisfaction and experience the "satisfaction of eating" without having to bear the "consequences of eating and drinking."

This may be the reason why some people watch mukbang to lose weight~

But if you lose weight by watching mukbang, you may overeat...

a When a person watches someone else eat, the other person is likely to feel hungrier and arouse the appetite even more.

First of all, mukbang subtly increases people’s risk of overeating and increases their psychological burden.

The original concept of mukbang is to show everyone delicious food and provide a certain amount of virtual companionship. However, nowadays, mukbang programs are increasingly using "eating a lot" and "eating weirdly" as gimmicks. Increase the popularity of your video by increasing your food intake.

Continuing to eat even though you are full is a typical symptom of bulimia; ingesting a large amount of food in a short period of time, and then taking extreme measures after eating because you are worried about gaining weight. Vomiting and catharsis consume the food eaten, creating a vicious cycle.

In the past few years, some mukbang bloggers also revealed that they had this problem and would induce vomiting in private.

Secondly, the "eat crazy but not fat" podcasters put more pressure on those of us who have to manage our diet.

Food bloggers seem to be people who "eat too much without getting fat", but "eating without getting fat" is either due to genes, video editing, inducing vomiting after broadcasting, or Crazy fitness exercises... can maintain the image and figure when on camera.

For those watching, they may feel a sense of imbalance in their hearts, "Why do I gain weight even when I drink cold water, but she can eat as much as she wants?"

Trust me! ! There is really no physique that you can eat without getting fat! Moreover, eating a large amount of food in a short period of time will only increase the pressure on the digestive burden. It looks good, but you are the one who suffers.

In addition to mukbang, I have also seen some bloggers and even celebrities on the Internet who are slender but like to create "eatable" personas. I hope you can just read this kind of content and not cause yourself any anxiety.

I dare not say that there are 100% people in this world who eat a lot without getting fat, but for normal people, if they want to be in good shape and healthy, a balanced diet is the key.

Therefore, it is not a big problem to regard watching food broadcasts as a way to lose weight or to establish a "can-eat" persona as one of your own ways to reduce stress, but you must blindly treat eating It is absolutely not advisable to incorporate the unhealthy eating habits in the broadcast into your daily life.

We need to work hard to establish our own eating habits system in our daily lives to ensure that our diet meets the needs of the body. This way, we can ensure that we can control our eating habits when watching the "feast" on mukbang. The desire to eat; the other issue is about weight loss. Weight loss is inseparable from proper and reasonable exercise. We should not place our hope on watching the compensatory reactions of eating broadcasts, otherwise the gain will outweigh the loss.

You must understand that a healthy and reasonable diet + appropriate exercise that suits you is the last word to ensure good health!