Sick in the head, I tell you.
(Photo by Oriental Daily: Ladyironchef, Gastronommy, ChanChunWai)
"Photographing Food May Be Sign of Mental Illness" reports Eater.com. Hilarious implications, since you and I both know at least a handful of friends who suffer from this illness.
"Dr. Valerie Taylor gave a presentation called "Food Fetish: Society's Complicated Relationship with Food" at the Canadian Obesity Summit in Vancouver last week in which she argued that "For some people who have the predisposition for weight behaviours" food photography and social media activity can anticipate "unhealthy weight disorders."
She says: "We take pictures of things that are important to us, and for some people, the food itself becomes central and the rest -– the venue, the company, et cetera -- is background." (The idea here is not so different from comedian Adam Sacks' mock iPhone ad which suggests people who take pictures of food care about the restaurant more than the people they are there with.) Taylor also finds similar issues with people getting food tattoos."Read more from this article here.
And on a related note, if you haven't heard about it already, there are entire comical blogs dedicated to food photography, such as Asians Taking Pictures of Food.