Wintry scenes can turn your thoughts to calorific foods, study claims 

Wintry scenes can turn your thoughts to calorific foods, study claims 
Wintry scenes can turn your thoughts to calorific foods, study claims 
How watching Frozen could make you reach for the biscuit tin: Wintry scenes trigger evolutionary craving for calorie-dense food, study claims Watching wintry scenes leads to eat more calorific foods, a study has found Experts believe it triggers our instinct to eat more during winter to survive Adverts should be reevaluated to avoid people eating more, they said

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Watching wintry films such as Frozen makes people crave junk food, researchers say. 

A study found those who watched a clip of a snowy forest showed a greater preference for calorific food than those who viewed a summer-themed video. 

The experts claim chilly imagery stimulates an evolutionary instinct that humans developed to avoid starving in winter.  

Many animals eat more than they need to in the lead-up to winter so the body can survive on fewer meals when hunting is difficult.  

Icelandic researchers who led the study said Coca-Cola may have unintentionally benefitted from the biological response with its famous Christmas advert.

They have called for future adverts to avoid using wintry cues.

The 2013 film Frozen is one of the most successful of all time and is set in winter

The 2013 film Frozen is one of the most successful of all time and is set in winter

The BBC series The North Water is set around a whaling expedition to the Arctic, containing lots of scenes of ice

The BBC series The North Water is set around a whaling expedition to the Arctic, containing lots of scenes of ice

In the study published in the journal Food Quality and Preference, the team from Reykjavik University asked hundreds of participants to watch either a video of a snow-filled forest filmed in the winter, or a lush, green forest in the summer.

The study was then split into four parts. In one arm of the research, participants filled out 15 different missing word puzzles that related to food. 

Those who watched the wintry video were more likely to fill in the blanks to make words related to high-calorie foods. 

In another, those who watched the cold conditions completed more words linked with survival, such as endure, sustain and fight, compared to those who watched the summer walk. 

Researchers said these two studies suggest people link high-calorie foods and survival to winter environments.

In a third study, participants watched the videos and then guessed

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