Action films may be exciting, but they also might spur weight gain, according to a study reported by The New York Times on Wednesday.
People tend to eat more if they are watching television, as previous research showed. But scientists and researchers from Cornell University wanted to know whether the type of programming made a difference.
They gave snacks to 97 undergraduate students and split them into three groups to find out. The first group of students watched a loud, frantic clip from "The Island," a 2005 action movie. The second group watched part of the Charlie Rose interview program on PBS. The third student group watched the same clip from "The Island" as the first group, but without sound.
By far, the first group consumed the most - 65 percent more calories than the "Charlie Rose" group (354 calories versus 215) and 98 percent more food (7.3 ounces versus 3.7). The group that watched "The Island" on mute ate 46 percent more calories and 36 percent more food than the Rose group.
Aner Tal, a research associate at Cornell's Food and Brand Lab and the lead author of the study, said the first group that watched "The Island" consumed so much more food relative to calories than the second group because the second group "enhanced their consumption of baby carrots more than the others - those weigh a lot and contain fewer calories."
A follow-up study asking why the action film caused people to eat more is now being worked on by the researchers. Tal said he thinks pacing may be an important factor.
"We choose this particular movie for its pacing, because it had a lot of camera cuts," he told the New York Times. "It could be that the camera cuts and sound set the tempo for the pace at which people eat."
