More and more people around the world want to reduce the consumption of high-calorie foods, either to maintain a slim body or out of a desire to lose weight and lower fat percentages.

A new study published in the journal "Appetite" examined an imaging technique that will help reduce high-calorie food choices among those who want to eat less.

Imaginal training is a behavioral therapy according to which the person is asked to imagine his favorite high-calorie food, and then to imagine eating it and thus actually getting rid of it, while performing the physical act of eating it.

Another technique, known as 3P, is a three-step process that begins with pull, hold, and push. The person will imagine biting into the food, stop, then imagine gently pushing the food away.

The researcher Stefan Moritz and his colleagues from several universities and research centers in Germany hypothesized that the 3P method would be more effective in changing eating habits than the imaginary training method.

The experiment involved 1,016 people from an online platform, who joined the study after hoping to reduce their cravings for high-calorie foods.

They were then randomly assigned to one of five groups, where all subjects were shown the same pictures of different foods high in fat and calories.

The first group was the control group, and its participants were asked to look at a picture of high-calorie food. The participants in the second group were asked to look at the picture, then close their eyes and imagine what was in the picture.

In the third group, the participants engaged in imaginary training without mime, while the participants in the fourth group engaged in imaginary training with mime. Then, the participants in the fifth group were asked to perform the 3P technique.

Finally, all participants looked at the pictures of the food again and rated their level of desire for what was described. Contrary to what the research team expected, the results revealed that participants in the fourth group experienced the greatest decrease in cravings for the high-fat food.

The findings of the study showed that those who tried the imaginary training, imagined the high-calorie food and then imagined getting rid of the food by spitting it out, reported that they reduced the desire for high-fat food.

Moritz and his research team concluded that imaginal training can be an effective treatment for obesity prevention and recommended further studies to better understand the technique and how to use it in a therapeutic setting.