Study Shows Why People Prefer the Unhealthiest Foods

An explosion in choices and access has exacerbated America’s junk food problem.

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Every afternoon, promptly at 3 p.m., Chuck Carroll hit up the local 7-Eleven for his habitual “fourth meal.”

“I would get six Buffalo chicken taquitos, and then two big bottles of Gatorade, and that was my ’snack' for the ride home,” he told The Epoch Times. “Every day, without fail.”

The “snack” was just the beginning of his evening indulgence. Once home, he said, he would typically “gorge on pizza” before heading to Taco Bell for dinner. All together, Carroll was eating upward of 10,000 calories per day, mainly in the form of junk food. The habit eventually skyrocketed his weight to 420 pounds.

“So even in my early 20s, I’m having chest pain, and I’ve been on blood pressure medication since I was 13 or 14 years old,” he said. “And I was just a mess.”

His experience is indicative of the larger trend of increased snacking among U.S. consumers—and a tendency to eat larger portions of junk food than is appropriate.

Discretionary Foods

The tendency to overindulge was documented in a study published in January in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The study included 295 Australian consumers ages 18 to 65 who viewed portions of 15 foods that the authors termed “discretionary.” Typically known as “junk food,” these foods were defined as “foods and drinks that are high in saturated fats, added sugars, added salt and/or alcohol.”

Participants chose one image of each discretionary food that best represented the portion size they thought was appropriate to eat in a single sitting and another that showed what they normally ate at home, alone, or with family. After adjusting for factors such as sex, age, and body mass index, the authors found that people reported eating “normal” servings up to two to five times larger than the “perceived appropriate” servings.

Junk Food Consumption on the Rise

The results reflect an overall increase in junk food consumption in recent years. According to a review published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in January 2022, the percentage of calories that ultra-processed foods occupied in the diets of U.S. adults increased from 53.5 percent to 57 percent between 2001 and 2018. The Department of Agriculture reports that the share of calories from fast food alone jumped from 5.9 percent to 16.3 percent between 1977 and 2018.

The emphasis on convenience in our modern food environment may be one explanation for the change.

“ I think the accessibility of food has definitely become an issue,” said Kathrine Brown, master-level weight loss and wellness coach and developer of the Conscious Weight Loss coaching process.

Delivery services such as DoorDash have vastly increased the availability of junk food, she told The Epoch Times

Jack A. Bobo, executive director of the University of California–Los Angeles Rothman Family Institute for Food Studies, agreed, and cited the explosion of choices as one contributing factor.

Today’s supermarkets carry thousands of food items. More choices mean more decisions, eventually leading to a state that Bobo calls “decision fatigue.” Decision fatigue strains our capacity to think carefully about what we’re buying, which can lead to poor food choices.

“Choice is fantastic,” Bobo told The Epoch Times. “But it’s also overwhelming.”

Even when our brains are fresh and alert, many of the choices we’re faced with encourage us to overeat.

“ If you think about even just going through the checkout line at the grocery store, very rarely do you see the regular-size candy bars,” Carroll said. “It’s always king size or jumbo size. We just get  immune to these massive portions at such a young age.”

Bobo said marketing can trick our brains by appealing to our desire for value. If we’re offered 4 ounces of ice cream for $4 but can get 6 ounces for $4.50, we’re more likely to choose the bigger size, he said.

“We hate to waste money,” Bobo said. “And that feels like value for money.”

Hooked on Snacking?

More than convenience and pragmatism may be at play in our tendency to overeat ultra-processed junk food. Carroll’s struggle points to one powerful potential driver: food addiction.

Despite suffering significant health problems at a young age, Carroll said he felt a need to eat his “fourth meal” and the other foods he overindulged in each day. He compared the draw to that of a drug addict seeking a fix, and said he believes that many people experience the same feeling without understanding the cause.

“I think that a lot of people are so hooked on ... these discretionary foods, that they kind of put blinders on much the same way that I did,” he said. “They know it’s not good for them, but they have no idea the extent of the damage that they’re doing to their body, nor do they have any idea that they’re addicted.”

Food addiction remains a controversial topic. Research results are often based on the Yale Food Addiction Scale, a measurement method designed to match the criteria for substance use disorders from “The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition.” Using this scale, a 2022 meta-analysis in Frontiers in Psychiatry found that 20 percent of the general population met the core criteria for food addiction. The criteria include an “intense preoccupation” with food, eating more or for longer than desired, and continuing with the same eating patterns despite known negative impacts.

However, differences in cultural attitudes toward snacking, food, and food addiction can skew study results, as can the subjective nature of self-reported eating. For those who experience a strong draw toward junk food, though, the experience is real and can disrupt their lives—as it did Carroll’s.

Brown, who describes herself as a former “foodaholic,” thinks that food addiction may develop as the result of learned behaviors that begin when people turn to food to regulate emotions or ease stress. Over time, their dependency on food as a coping mechanism may progress into addiction.

Seeking Indulgence

Whether or not the allure of junk food is rooted in addiction, uncovering the cause of excessive snacking is vital for public health, as snacks become a larger part of daily life.

According to the International Food Information Council, more than half of Americans snack or eat small meals instead of traditional meals. Data from the 2024 Mondelēz State of Snacking report show that 60 percent of global consumers also prefer to eat smaller meals throughout the day instead of a few larger ones.

While convenience is a factor, some data support Brown’s observations about the role of emotion. The Mondelēz report revealed that 61 percent of consumers think that it’s important to “treat themselves to pleasure, comfort, and joy”—and eight out of 10 use snacks as a reward for “a productive day.”

The combination of increased snacking and a greater prevalence of ultra-processed foods in typical diets could be driving the obesity epidemic. A 2024 review of the current body of evidence linking obesity to ultra-processed food consumption showed a largely consistent correlation across cultures and age groups—a correlation that could put more people at risk for conditions such as heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, and stroke.

Striving for Health

Consumer data also suggest that, even as people seek indulgence, they recognize the potential risks of ultra-processed snacking and are trying to choose healthier options. Fifty-eight percent of Americans look for fruit when snacking, with protein coming in second. The Specialty Food Association reports that many consumers want nourishing snacks that promote energy and keep them full longer.

Food manufacturers are responding with products that combine healthy ingredients and the sweet, salty, or crunchy flavors and textures we collectively crave. However, neither Carroll nor Bobo said he believes that introducing new snack formulations will help us control our junk food intake.

“ Look at the biggest weight loss programs in the world,” Carroll said. “They make sure that they still have all of those types of discretionary foods on their menu. So we’re never changing behaviors. We’re just reinforcing bad habits.”

Bobo pointed to the “low-fat” food craze of the early ’90s as a prime example. When the dietary guidelines advised Americans to reduce fat in their diets, low-fat versions of popular products exploded onto grocery store shelves. But despite the changes, we continued to overeat.

“The problem is that human psychology got involved and our brain thought, ‘Well, if one low-fat cookie is good for me, the entire box is going to be great,’” Bobo said. “And so we ended up overconsuming because low fat doesn’t equal low sugar or low calorie. And so our brains are very good at finding the loophole in our efforts to be healthier.”

Breaking the Junk Food Cycle

To break the cycle of overeating, Bobo, Brown, and Carroll all said we must recognize the forces that drive us—be they marketing, addiction, or emotion—and take action to restore our freedom of choice.

Carroll said his personal moment of revelation was dramatic. After trying a litany of popular diets to curb his food intake, he said he found himself on the “cookie diet,” an eating plan that he described as “eating a cookie for breakfast and another one for lunch and just drinking a whole lot of water.”

“And that’s supposed to keep you full until dinner,” he said.

However, Carroll was never full—a persistent problem that he said drove him “up the wall.” He said he believes that he was experiencing symptoms of withdrawal from all of the junk food he'd been eating. One night, he said, his emotions spiraled into a combination of depression and anger that ended with him putting his fist through a wall, abandoning the cookie diet, and heading to Taco Bell for his usual fare. As a wave of euphoria washed over him with the first bite, he said he realized, “I’m addicted to this stuff.”

For many of us, getting to the root of our overeating may require a more subtle, introspective approach. Brown said that’s why she uses journaling exercises to help her clients identify their choices when snacking and objectively evaluate the actions and feelings surrounding those choices. She said journaling can uncover long-standing habits or emotional triggers so clients can seek help for the underlying issues. The practice can be helpful for anyone, she said. Once we know what’s causing us to overeat, we can start to change our choices.

Bobo advised taking practical steps to establish new habits and make them stick.

“ Each of us has to figure out: How is junk food infiltrating my life, and what are some strategies I can use in order to limit that?” he said. According to him, the simplest strategies are to not keep junk food in the house and to avoid places that routinely trigger overindulgence. Bobo also suggested reframing the concept of “value” by seeing a single giant portion as two or three reasonably sized treats that can be enjoyed on separate occasions.

“Eating half a  brownie, you might enjoy the brownie that much more than eating the whole brownie, if it’s more calories than you actually need,” he said. “Why not have two desserts, one today and one tomorrow, instead of doubling up today?”

Bobo doesn’t put much confidence in the methods that the authors of the Australian study suggested for improving the broader food environment, which included setting limits to prevent “supersizing,” offering smaller-size options, and adding portion cues to packaging.

“There are a lot of people who read labels or nutrition fact panels and things like that,” Bobo said. “But there’s also a fair amount of research that says we don’t read facts panels when we don’t want to know what it says.”

Bringing the Joy Back to Snacking

In Carroll’s case, the shift toward a healthier mindset and lifestyle came unexpectedly after he decided to have weight loss surgery.

“ I just woke up from the surgery, and suddenly the golden arches at McDonald’s had a ton of tarnish,” he said. “And anything in the fast food world was suddenly my enemy. And to this day, I’ve never been back.”

Today, Carroll said, when he’s tempted to overeat, he stops to take a deep breath and consider what his body needs rather than default to past habits. If he feels full but still wants more, he reminds himself that the food will still be there later if he gets hungry again.

Today, Carroll hosts The Exam Room Podcast and is a self-proclaimed weight loss champion. He said he shares his story whenever he can to raise awareness and help others realize that it is possible to overcome even the most extreme junk food habit.

Brown said she helps clients become more mindful of their portion choices with a concept that she calls a soul serving—a predetermined amount of discretionary food that’s just enough to satisfy. Portioning out and enjoying a soul serving instead of sitting down with a whole box or bag of snacks allows clients to stop and evaluate how they feel before deciding if they want more.

Whatever approach we take, Bobo said, the goal should be to bring joy back to our experience with food.

“It should not be to punish yourself,” he said. “It should not be to undermine your enjoyment. You have to find something that actually makes you happier about how you’re eating.”

This article has been edited from its original version.