Why do we like junk food?

[valenzuela]

If junk food is bad for us why do we like it? Has our body simply not adapted to our new lifestyle?

[Rduke55]

We've evolved to really like fat, sugar, etc.
Hard to change that, especially in such a short time.

Another thing to consider is that problems caused by a crappy diet and obesity typically don't kill you until after you are of a reproductive age.

[Shoe Lace]

I think we evolved into tying in emotion to food consumption. My personal belief is that the media is mostly to blame.

In your typical food commercial you usually see someone or a family having a great time. "Well if that person/family if having a good time I guess I'll like it to -- it must be good".

[DerrtySlime]

im addicted to chocolate i eat like 2 a day but here is what i heard.

our brains love the feeling that chocolate does to our body so it craves it. we basically crave the neurological feel.

[Shoe Lace]

If I decide to eat chocolate I ate it because I'm itching for something sweet and it happens to taste quite good on a very basic level (my tastebuds send "this is good" signals to my brain).

Similar to when my grandmother used to make home made souvlakis. They tasted "good". The feelings I felt after eating both are not different. Although I'd usually have deadly gas after eating souvlakis, but that's besides the point.

Chocolate is a prime example of the media in action. Supposedly yes, it is proven to contain certain chemicals that may change how you feel in a very short time frame.

Media: "Wow this is a great idea, we can control how people feel, in both a positive and negative way. Let's tie chocolate into feeling warm/relaxed/etc instead of the negatives, and push it as hard as we can".

If the media showed severly overweight adults and children looking at a piece of chocolate cake with tears in their eyes, then suddenly went into a rage and attacked the cake with their mouth -- eating it in less than 5 seconds, while crying and sobbing. Then for good measure, showed a slideshow of random disgusting medical images at the end, can you say with 100% confidence chocolate would be as popular as it is today?
[Note: assume you never saw a positive chocolate ad in your entire life, and commercials similar to the above were being ran for the last 50 years]

[Phil153]

While our bodies are definitely tuned for fat and sugar, a lot of it is conditioning too. Eat a delicious and wholesome diet for a few weeks and junk food will become disgusting. Get used to natural juices and sodas become grossly over sweet.

[CORed]

For most of the history of humankind, we have lived on the edge of starvation. This means that eating any kind of high calorie food when the opportunity presented itself was a survival enhancing move. Also, putting on a nice load of fat provides you with "famine insurance". Constantly pigging out on high-calorie, but otherwise now nutrient food isn't good for you, but that's not an opportunity most people had, until fairly recently in human history.

Another thing to consider: Longevity isn't really something that's selected for all that strongly. If you live long enough to have some kids and raise them to adulthood (40-60), there's not much benefit, evolutionarily speaking to living any longer.

[gull]

Junk food is good for us. Anything, even water, is bad for us in excess. Since people always have a problem with excess of junk food, we call it bad.

[valenzuela]

[ QUOTE ]
Junk food is good for us. Anything, even water, is bad for us in excess. Since people always have a problem with excess of junk food, we call it bad.

[/ QUOTE ]

this is an intresting theory.

[m_the0ry]

[ QUOTE ]
While our bodies are definitely tuned for fat and sugar, a lot of it is conditioning too. Eat a delicious and wholesome diet for a few weeks and junk food will become disgusting. Get used to natural juices and sodas become grossly over sweet.

[/ QUOTE ]

Agreed completely. Junkfood addiction has so much to do with convinience. Junk food is very cheap and requires little preparation. Add in some saturated fat and sky high sodium and it will trick a few of your senses into thinking you're eating something delicious. We like junk food simply because we are very quick to proclaim, "I'm too busy to cook for myself" and fast food is one of the cheapest cop outs in this respect.