Watching TV could help you LOSE weight ...but only if your set is broken or needs tuning

It has long been blamed as one of the key reasons we gain weight.

But new research suggests that couch potatoes may actually be able to shed the pounds in front of the box - provided their TV is on the blink.

Scientists have found that looking at the flickering screen that usually means your television is broken, or needs tuning, can banish hunger pangs.

Food cravings instantly disappear if someone spends just a few seconds looking at a black and white flickering screen.

Good news for Homer: Couch potatoes could lose weight by watching TV - but only if the screen is flickering

Volunteers who carried a hand-held computer device that displayed the flickering images reported that their hunger pangs subsided by 23 per cent almost immediately after they watched them.

During the course of the study, by psychologists at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, they also consumed nearly 40 per cent fewer calories than participants who did not view the images.

The highly unusual dieting regime deploys a technique known as dynamic visual noise, where thousands of tiny black and white dots bounce around the screen.

Scientists have been using dynamic visual noise in the laboratory for years, mainly to analyse how it affects short term working memory.

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But now research is beginning to show it can help people diet by blocking the vivid images that form in the brain when we experience sudden food cravings for treats like chocolate, ice cream or chips.

Obesity has emerged as a major burden on the NHS and the ready availability of fattening foods makes it hard to resist hunger pangs when they strike during the day.

Recent figures showed the number of people admitted to hospital for obesity-related illnesses has shot up more than 10 fold in the past decade.

Health experts predict Britain’s obesity epidemic will cost the NHS and the economy £60bn annually by 2050.

Food cravings instantly disappear if someone spends just a few seconds looking at a black and white flickering screen. During the study, people who looked at a flickering screen every time they felt hungry consumed 40 per cent less calories than those who did not

Numerous studies have shown that one of the reasons we give in to food cravings so easily is that they can provoke vivid mental images of the tasty treat in question.

But other research shows it is possible to interrupt those images by making the brain focus on something else.

For example, one study found cravings were reduced when volunteers were asked to visualise a beautiful rainbow instead of the snack they yearned for.

Another achieved the same results by asking patients to imagine the smell of eucalyptus once their tummies started to rumble.

The latest research, published in the journal Appetite, simplifies this approach by giving volunteers an actual image that can distract the brain for a few seconds until the urge to eat has passed.

Over a two-week period, 48 female students recorded their daily food cravings and details of their food consumption.

The researchers believe that an app could be created which would help people to lose weight by displaying a flickering screen if they accessed it every time they felt hungry

For the following two weeks, half of the participants were given a palmtop computer which displayed a flickering screen for eight seconds whenever they tapped the screen.

They were told to look at the screen every time they felt peckish outside of normal meal times. The rest carried on snacking as usual.

The results showed that the intensity of food cravings dropped substantially among those who viewed the flickering images and they consumed considerably fewer calories.

In a report on the findings the researchers said the technique is so simple and effective it could help millions lose weight.

‘This has considerable scope for tackling unwanted over-consumption that results from food cravings.

‘The software could easily be developed as an app to be downloaded on smart phones or other hand-held computer devices that many people carry with them.

‘This means the technique could be readily available in a discreet manner virtually anywhere and anytime a food craving arises.’