We often think of smoking and drinking when it comes to addiction—but there’s another compulsion affecting as many as 14 percent of adults and even 15 percent of kids: food addiction.
Indulgent dishes enticing us with fat and sugar can feel impossible to avoid, especially during the holidays. Experts confirm it’s more than a feeling: Half a century of food trends has created an environment where more than half the food consumed by American adults is ultra-processed, often optimized to hit the body’s fat and sugar sensors to release dopamine.
These processed food products capitalize on our biology to keep us reaching for more. “We don't realize that these are really killing people on par with what we're seeing with things like alcohol and tobacco, leading to preventable deaths,” says Ashley Gearhardt, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Michigan and a member of a research team that assessed the prevalence of food addiction in March 2022.
Experts are rewriting what we know about food addiction and asking new questions about what we can do to curb it—and save lives.
Read the full article on National Geographic.
