We are no longer hungry only for food, but for images of food. Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts have become global visual menus, where appetite is triggered by scrolling, not by smell or time. In this context, hunger is no longer a physiological signal, but a cultural one.

The algorithm shows us what is “being eaten now”: creamy pasta, oversized burgers, desserts that ooze. It doesn’t matter whether we are hungry or not—the body reacts to visual stimuli. Food becomes spectacle, and consumption begins with the gaze. We choose what to eat not based on need, but on aesthetics.

This digital mediation changes our relationship with real taste. Simple dishes that don’t look “good in a photo” become invisible. Instead, food is evaluated through contrast, color, and visual effect. From here emerges a standardized, globalized hunger that ignores local or personal context.

Moreover, the screen creates a dissociation: we can consume food content for hours without actually eating, or, conversely, eat without being present, distracted by the same screen. Hunger becomes confused, and satiety delayed.

When Instagram decides what we are hungry for, the relationship with food shifts from the body to the feed. And the real challenge remains relearning how to listen to real signals, not those generated by the algorithm.

(Photo: Freepik)