Addiction to ultraprocessed foods is rising in the United States. Are you in danger? A growing number of people in the United States are clinically addicted to ultraprocessed foods, studies have shown. Which foods put you most at risk? Summary AI-generated summary was reviewed by a CNN editor.
What makes a food irresistible, even addictive? Is it the amount of fat? Refined carbs and extra sugar? Salt? Lots of calories packed into a single bite? My grandma’s chocolate chip-oatmeal cookie recipe has all that and more. But while I love to make and gobble them up, I don’t crave them like someone addicted to cigarettes or booze.
“Grandma doesn’t have access to proprietary sensory scientists that create a burst of flavors that fade, leaving you wanting more,” said food addiction specialist Ashley Gearhardt, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. “Ultraprocessed products have a nutritional signature — based on the neuroscience of food reward — that Mother Nature never delivers to you in a single food,” she said. A primal quest for key nutrients To survive, humans need sodium for nerve conduction, fluid balance and working muscles.
Essential fatty acids are also critical — the human brain is nearly 60% fat — and storing fat about the body is a priority for times when food is scarce. For our hunter-gatherer ancestors, getting enough of these critical nutrients was a daily life-and-death struggle. It’s no wonder many people crave carbs, fat and salt — it’s part of our physiological drive to survive.
Foods packed with these key nutrients are “easily and instantaneously available in every vending machine, fast-food restaurant and every grocery store — and can even be purchased online and delivered to your door,” said Evan Forman, the Ellen M. & Dale W. “If you look at the phenomenon of GLP-1 medications, this overabundance is what they are treating,” Forman said.
“Instead of regulating our food, we’re pathologizing people, calling overeating a disease, and then prescribing them medication. ” When it comes to addiction to ultraprocessed foods, blame the food supply, not an individual's willpower, experts say. “Food industry formulations are taking advantage — essentially exploiting a very deep-set and powerful biological response we have to certain substances,” he said.
“Take heroin or fentanyl, for example,” Forman added. “We don’t make the argument, ‘Well, you know, people should just resist heroin. ” The most addictive ingredients Some 14% of older adults in the United States — and 21% of women ages 50 to 64 — are now clinically addicted to ultraprocessed foods, according to the Yale Food Addiction Scale.
Those numbers are growing. Related article Ultraprocessed food scientists say Americans are ‘fed up’ with industry and government inaction 8 min read But not all ultraprocessed foods are habit-forming. “People come in with their favorite villain: ‘I think it’s fat. ’ ‘I think it’s sodium.
“So, we did a study asking a representative sample of 1,600 American adults to tell us how they rate a food’s characteristics. Key role of starches and refined grains Not surprisingly, some of the most addictive foods named in the study were grocery store junk foods — ultraprocessed cookies, cakes, doughnuts, muffins, pies, pizza, chips, candy and other snack foods. Those high-fat, high-carb combos also had to be delivered in an energy-dense form to be described as hard to resist, Gearhardt said: “We can’t just say, ‘Is it fat or is it carbs, is it energy density, or calories per gram.
” Few minimally processed foods fell into the highest risk of addiction category — although bagels, croissants, Belgian waffles or French toast with syrup, grilled cheese sandwiches, mashed potatoes with store-bought gravy, roasted potatoes with butter, and homemade bread were considered highly habit-forming. 0 CF lens Eating more plants linked to lower risk of dementia, even in older age 5 min read What makes these foods problematic? They use ultraprocessed, refined flours that quickly turn into glucose in the body, spiking blood sugars.
“Our findings suggest that focusing exclusively on sugar may miss part of the picture,” Gearhardt said. “For example, many potato chips contain little or no added sugar, yet they still deliver rapidly absorbed carbohydrates. So, refined carbohydrates, including starches that are rapidly digested into glucose, appear to be important contributors.
“It identifies nutrient patterns associated with higher self-reported ratings, but that is not the same as showing that those foods cause addiction or should be treated like addictive substances,” said IFBA Secretary General Rocco Renaldi. Two gold-standard clinical trials sequestered dozens of volunteers in a hospital for a month and monitored every bite they ate — as well as their exercise, stool samples and health vitals. The results showed people on an ultraprocessed diet ate an additional 500 to 1,000 calories each day compared with eating home-cooked whole foods.
Which foods spurred people to eat the most calories? One meal, for example, was ultraprocessed turkey and American cheese white bread sandwiches, potato chips, and peaches canned in heavy syrup. “Hyperpalatable foods exaggerate the eating experience. And because they are everywhere, they are changing our taste buds to expect those levels of sugar, salt and fat in all the foods we eat,” said Tera Fazzino, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Kansas in Lawrence and associate director of the Cofrin Logan Center for Addiction Research and Treatment.
Experts point to the growing litany of health harms: Eating roughly 10% more ultraprocessed foods a day led to a 55% higher risk of obesity, a 50% rise in cardiovascular disease-related death, and a 40% increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Addictive ultraprocessed foods aren't restricted to so-called junk foods like burgers and fries. A 10% increase is the equivalent of just one extra serving of ultraprocessed food a day, according to study authors.
“Enjoyment and palatability are normal parts of eating; they are not unique to foods labeled ‘ultra-processed,’ nor are they evidence of clinical addiction or proof that a food is addictive,” Renaldi said. One popular frozen pizza, for example, has 18 grams of total fat and 9 grams of saturated fat. Saturated fat is the artery-clogging type of fat that leads to high cholesterol, heart disease and heart attacks.
Look at the right side of the label, and you’ll see the daily recommended allowance for that nutrient set by the US Food and Drug Administration. That’s per serving, which is one-quarter of the medium-size pie. Of course, eating ultraprocessed foods does not automatically turn you into an addict.
Addiction risk is influenced by genetics, stress, mental health, the food environment, and exposure to enticing food product design and marketing, experts say. “That said, I think there’s a tendency to frame this as an all-or-nothing issue: Either someone is addicted or they’re not,” she added. “I would encourage people to pay attention to their own experience,” Gearhardt said.
“If a particular food starts taking up a lot of mental space, triggers intense cravings, repeatedly derails intentions or feels increasingly difficult to control, those may be important warning signs. ” Get inspired by a weekly roundup on living well, made simple. Sign up for CNN’s Life, But Better newsletter for information and tools designed to improve your well-being.
