New research from Brigham Young University reveals that looking at too many pictures of food can actually make eating less enjoyable because you feel as if you’ve already tasted the foods you’ve viewed in photos.

In other words, your friend’s obsession with taking pictures of everything they eat and posting it on Instagram or Pinterest could be ruining your appetite.

“In a way, you’re becoming tired of that taste without even eating the food,” said study coauthor and BYU professor Ryan Elder. “It’s sensory boredom – you’ve kind of moved on. You don’t want that taste experience anymore.”

Elder and his coauthor Jeff Larson, both marketing professors in BYU’s Marriott School of Management, say over exposure to food imagery increases people’s satiation. Satiation is the drop in enjoyment that comes with repeated consumption.

Larson and Elder recruited 232 people to view and rate pictures of food. In one study, half of the participants viewed 60 pictures of sweet foods like cakes, truffles and chocolates. The other half of participants looked at 60 pictures of salty foods like chips, pretzels and french fries.

After rating each picture based on how appetizing the food was, each participant finished the experiment by consuming peanuts. Participants then rated how much they enjoyed eating the peanuts.

Participants that had looked at the salty foods ended up enjoying the peanuts less, even though they never looked at peanuts, just other salty foods. The researchers say the subjects satiated on the specific sensory experience of saltiness.

“If you want to enjoy your food consumption experience, avoid looking at too many pictures of food,” Larson said. “Even I felt a little sick to my stomach during the study after looking at all the sweet pictures we had.”

The authors say the effect is strongest the more pictures you view. So, if you are only viewing a few food pictures a day, there is nothing to be alarmed about.

“You do have to look at a decent number of pictures to get these effects,” Elder said. “It’s not like if you look at something two or three times you’ll get that satiated effect.”

These findings were published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology.