Junk Foods and Addiction Additives

Junk food is an informal term applied to some foods which are perceived to have little or no nutritional value, or to products with nutritional value but which also have ingredients considered unhealthy when regularly eaten, or to those considered unhealthy to consume at all. The term was coined by Michael Jacobson, director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, in 1972.

Junk foods are typically ready to eat convenience foods containing high levels of saturated fats, salt, or sugar; and little or no fruit, vegetables, or dietary fibre.

Junk food includes foods such as soft drinks, hamburgers, hot dogs, ice cream, cake, French fries, chocolate and other confectionery, pizza, cookies, fried chicken and donuts

A study by Paul Johnson and Paul Kenny at The Scripps Research Institute suggested that junk food alters brain activity in a manner similar to addictive drugs like cocaine or heroin.^[6] After many weeks on a junk food diet, the pleasure centers of rat brains became desensitized, requiring more food for pleasure. After the junk food was taken away and replaced with a healthy diet, the rats starved for two weeks instead of eating nutritious fare.^[7] A 2007 British Journal of Nutrition study found that mothers who eat junk food during pregnancy increased the likelihood of unhealthy eating habits in their children.^[8]

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Addiction

There are various kinds of additives that are added to the junk foods. These additives cause the food to have the extreme taste. These include foods like slats of different varieties which can cause hypertension and even cancer.

These are the various methods in which junk foods cause a person to get addicted to them. This in turn makes the person seek these junk food and eat more in quantity. Finally, the person gets affected by various chronic diseases and also become obese causing the person a great loss. All this can be prevented if the individual can just stop eating the junk food for a few days and they will get de addicted to the junk food.

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Researchers

The researchers made their announcement in response to a new study led by the Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Florida. All joking aside, the study actually did contain some genuine surprises, particularly in revealing just how extraordinarily addictive junk food actually is. In essence, the researchers found that junk foods exert an addictive pull as powerful as that conferred by the most highly addictive narcotic drugs.

Dr. Kenny and his colleagues divided rats into three groups and then headed to the grocery store. “We basically bought all of the stuff that people really like — Ding-Dongs, cheesecake, bacon, sausage, [chocolate frosting, pound cake] — the stuff that you enjoy, but you really shouldn’t eat too often,” he said. They also bought healthy food. Each group of rats followed a different diet for 40 days. The rats in the first group ate healthy, regular rat food only. In the second group, the rats got healthy rat food plus an hour of access daily to junk food. The third group had unlimited access to both health food and junk — like most humans do.

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