FinnFoodPics: A database of Finnish snack foods for investigating modern eating behaviors

Abstract

Modern food items often contain high proportions of saturated fats and refined carbohydrates. Food images are a valuable tool for studying the effects of these diets on eating behavior and disease prevalence. We created and validated a Finnish food picture set to facilitate studies on food choice and eating behavior called “FinnFoodPics.” We photographed 72 commonly consumed Finnish food items, classifying them as high in carbohydrate (22 items), high in fat (21 items), or high in carbohydrate and fat (combo) (29 items). Sixty-two participants completed perceptual ratings for all our food items, while we also collected information on food characteristics and the images' visual properties across categories. Bayesian ANOVA confirmed that our items were familiar to our sample and had moderate uniformity across categories. We found strong evidence of perceptual and food characteristic differences across macronutrient categories for all assessed parameters. Thus, “FinnFoodPics” provides a reliable tool for researchers to study food-related behavior in Finland and facilitates the replicability and comparability of studies using visual snack food stimuli.