Ask Smithsonian: Why Do We Love Junk Food? (2024)

FAQs

Ask Smithsonian: Why Do We Love Junk Food? ›

These so-called junk foods hit us right where our taste buds live and also satisfy a love of sugar that we're born with. But the burgeoning, and in some cases, chronic, consumption of junk is driven by peer pressure and marketing—not physiological need—say nutrition experts.

Furthermore, junk foods can trigger the “happy hormone,” dopamine, to be released in the brain, making us feel good when we eat these foods. This can lead us to wanting more junk food to get that same happy feeling again [8]. Other long-term effects of eating too much junk food include tooth decay and constipation.

THE DISCUSSION ON JUNK FOOD

How often do you eat junk food? What is it about junk food that is so bad for us? Do you think there should be a junk food tax to help pay for people who go to hospital with heart and weight problems? Why is junk food so delicious?

Additives in fast food, such as monosodium glutamate (MSG) or sodium, suppress the hormone that tells your body that you're full. And a snack or dessert high in sugar releases dopamine, the hormone and chemical neurotransmitter that sends pleasure signals to your brain.

Eating junk food on a regular basis can lead to an increased risk of obesity and chronic diseases like cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and some cancers.

Junk food consumption is associated with excess body fat, high blood pressure, and low HDL cholesterol — all of which increase your risk of type 2 diabetes ( 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 ).

Cutting back on junk food means you'll be receiving less amounts of fat, sugar and calories, which will naturally lead to weight loss. You'll feel more energetic. Receiving more calories from junk food doesn't mean you're obtaining enough nutritional substance.

Junk foods have a lot of sugar, salt and fat, which makes it taste delicious and irresistible. People may develop a craving for junk foods as a result of these components, which can cause the production of pleasure-inducing neurotransmitters in the brain.

Potato chips, ice cream, candy bars, and cookies; Americans love their junk food. According to DoSomething.Org, Americans eat 31% more prepackaged food than fresh. That's a lot of Oreos, crunchy Doritos, and crispy pretzels!

What does junk food do to your brain? ›

Junk foods can hamper the signalling of neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin (the happy hormones). This can lead to depression and other mental health disorders. Canadian researchers have found that fast food can often result in people feeling more hurried or impatient.

Eating an excessive amount of junk food can have a negative effect on your general health and wellbeing and can also reduce your ability to be active. As well as causing you to gain weight, the other short-term effects of eating junk food include: increased stress levels.

The unhealthy fat which we eat followed by no physical activity gets stored in our body leading to weight gain which results in obesity. Junk food can adversely affect your metabolism: Our metabolism becomes so weak that after 5 days it takes time of 2-3 days for our body to function normally as before.

According to Moss, it only takes about six weeks of healthy eating to ditch your dependency on junk food, especially salt.

Cutting out junk food may seem like the most difficult thing, but with practice comes perfection. It is about mindset and cheating your brain into believing another pattern of thought. Just be sure of your own will, and you will be able to convert to healthy eating.

Where did this tendency come from? Our love of junk food does have an evolutionary link. For early humans, sugar, salt and fat were relatively hard to find, which is why we quickly developed a taste for them (our brains conditioned us to enjoy them so that we wouldn't hesitate to eat them if the chance arose).