An experimental study conducted in Austria found that listening to music you dislike decreased your overall appetite, but increased your specific desire to eat high-carbohydrate foods. On the other hand, preference for low-carbohydrate foods was higher when listening to favorite music and when not listening to music. The paper is appetite.
Music exists in every corner of society and plays an important role in everyone’s life. Even when people are not actively listening to music, they are exposed to it in places like restaurants, supermarkets, and even on the streets. Music can be created using voices, musical instruments, digital technology, and even everyday objects that emit sound.
People use music to express emotions that are difficult to express in words, and emotions can also be influenced by music. Music can change the mood, reduce stress, increase energy, and also help people feel comforted and understood. Music also helps people bond with each other through songs, dances, rituals, celebrations, and shared cultural traditions. In many societies, history, identity, values, and memories are passed down from generation to generation. It gives people joy and allows them to experience a sense of beauty. For some, it serves as a way to cope with pain, loneliness, or emotional conflict.
Study authors Jonas Potthoff and Anne Schieel investigated whether music likes and dislikes influence visual attention, desire to eat, and food choices in buffet-like situations. The study authors hypothesized that general appetite and specific desire to eat high-sugar foods would decrease when people listened to music they liked and increase when they listened to music they disliked. We also expected that listening to music participants disliked would increase their visual attention to food, while listening to music they liked would decrease their visual attention to food.
This study included 106 participants. Of these, 83 were women. The average age of participants was 25 years. Thirty-three participants were vegetarians or vegans, and all participants were instructed to fast for at least 3 hours before the laboratory session.
Study participants were randomly divided into three groups. One group listened to music they liked during the experiment, another group listened to music they disliked, and a third group finished the experiment without listening to any music. In the experimental setting, nine items were presented in a 3 × 3 array on a table. There were three high-sugar foods (vegan gummy candies in different colors), three low-sugar foods (fruit: green grapes, oranges, and red apples), and three non-foods (green marbles, orange massage balls, and red tennis balls).
Participants were instructed to bring one song that they particularly liked and one song that they particularly disliked. Depending on their condition, they were instructed to listen to songs they liked, songs they disliked, or no music at all.
Study participants completed ratings of their emotional state (self-assessment manikin) and general desire to eat before and after listening to music. Next, the study authors began looking at the items on the table (buffet) while using an eye tracker to record their eye movements. Finally, participants rated their desire to eat the food on the table and were able to eat as many of the buffet items as they wanted.
The results showed that after listening to music they disliked, participants tended to have a lower overall appetite, but an increased desire to eat high-sugar foods (vegan gummy candy). In fact, almost 62% of participants in the music-disliking group chose to eat sugary foods, compared to just 24% of the music-loving group and 38% of the no-music group. Whether you liked music or not was associated with your preference for low-carbohydrate foods (in this case, fruit).
Researchers believe this phenomenon is due to a concept called “compensatory consumption,” or emotional eating. Because the disliked music made participants feel worse, their brains subconsciously sought out highly rewarding, sugary comfort foods as a coping mechanism to improve their mood, even though their overall hunger decreased.
Music did not affect participants’ visual attention. However, participants stared longer at food than at non-food items, regardless of music condition, proving that the decision to eat sweet food was determined by mood, not how long they stared at candy.
“These findings suggest that music can bias food-related decision-making independently of attentional processes. Liked music may promote healthier choices, whereas disliked music increases sensitivity to high-carbohydrate comfort foods despite a reduction in general appetite. These results highlight the potential of music as a subtle non-caloric intervention to promote low-carbohydrate dietary behaviors,” the study authors conclude.
This study contributes to the scientific understanding of the influence of music on food choices. However, the extent to which participants’ expressed preferences for particular foods can actually be generalized to broader food categories remains unclear. If you prefer fruit after listening to your favorite music, it’s possible that you simply prefer fruit, and not necessarily prefer low-carbohydrate foods in general. Similarly, the increased preference for gummy candies after listening to music you dislike may simply apply to gummy candies rather than high-sugar foods in general.
The paper, “Eye candy and eye tone: The influence of liked and disliked music on desire to eat and food choice in an eye-tracking buffet paradigm” was authored by Jonas Potthoff and Anne Sienle.
