Mental Health

Drawing Out Foods Helps Improve Moods, Study

By Christine Hsu | Update Date: Jul 09, 2013 05:46 PM EDT

Having comfort foods like pizza and chocolate sundaes will cheer anyone up. However, a new study reveals that drawing out these tasty but unhealthy foods is enough to put us in a better mood.

Psychologists at St. Bonaventure University in New York studied 61 students who were randomly divided into four groups.

The participants were given red, green, and black pencils, and told to draw pictures of food researchers placed in front of them. All the participants in the study were drawing on an empty stomach, according to the Daily Mail.

One group drew high-fat, high-sugar cupcakes, the second group drew pictures of pizzas, the third group drew strawberries and a fourth group drew peppers.

Researchers assessed the mood, hunger and levels of interest and excitement of participants before and after the five-minute drawing exercise.

While none of the groups felt significantly hungrier than each other, researchers found dramatic differences in participants' mood swing.

Participants who drew pizzas experienced a 28 percent boost in mood, those who drew cupcakes had a 27 percent boost and those who drew strawberries experienced a 22 percent boost.

However, participants who drew peppers experienced only a one percent boost in mood.

Because all the participants used the same colors in their drawings, researchers say the mood change was most likely due to the type of food participants drew, according to the study published in the Journal of Behavioral and Brain Science.

Researchers added that the latest study supports previous findings that seeing images of food has a positive impact on mood. 

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