Scientists Explain Why People Want to Eat Babies

Ok. The title of this article is totally all wrong-I get it.

 

But honestly. How many of you have picked up your cute little baby and smooched them all of their little pudgy faces and just couldn't stand it?? Or if you ever said to someone's kid,  "Your baby is so cute, I feel I must eat you now! Come here to be nommed on!" or "You'e so cute, I could just gobble you right up!"

We aren't talking about literally eating babies here. But pretend baby eating-nibbling at them,squeezing their faces a little, smooching them, nudging them with your nose, you get the idea.

According to Buzzfeed, This phenomenon has a name, and apparently, a sociological purpose. Commonly known as cute aggression, “dimorphous expressions” can be a helpful tool in controlling our emotions, according to findings by psychological scientists at Yale University.

And according to csmonitor.com,

"Apparently it has something to do with the way babies smell. A paper published in the current issue of Frontiers in Psychology describes how researchers in Dresden, Germany, imaged the brains of two groups of 15 women while the women sampled the odors of other parents' newborns. One group was composed of women who had given birth within the past six weeks. The other group was made up of women who had never given birth. The scientists collected the smells from the pajamas of two-day old infants."

The article goes on to say,

"The smells were shown to elicit activation in the women's' brains' reward circuits. This circuit makes us desire certain foods and causes addiction to tobacco and other drugs,” said University of Montreal researcher and study co-author Johannes Frasnelli, in a news release. “Not all odours trigger this reaction. Only those associated with reward, such as food or satisfying a desire, cause this activation.”

Now, here is my personal little cutie whom I try not to "eat" on a daily basis!

*Disclaimer: Please do not try to eat your baby at home... or anywhere for that matter. Just don't do it.*