Junk Food is Killing your Appetite for Healthy Foods

In a new study published in the journal ‘Frontiers in Psychology’ it has been mentioned that junk food can increase your weight and at the same time kill your appetite for healthy eating. The research was conducted at the University of New South Wales, Australia.

Here the researchers conducted experiments in order to see how junk food could possibly impact the eating habits and diet preferences of the consumers. This study was conducted on two different groups of rats for over 2 weeks. While one group was fed with healthy rat food, the other was fed junk foods. The junk foods included, pie, dumplings, cookies and cake. The groups were given cherry and grape sugar water to drink. It was found that the second group of rats not only weighed 10 percent more than the other healthy group, but they also had certain behaviourial changes in them.

While the healthy group responded to the sound cues, the ones eating junk foods got them all wrong. When they heard a noise which was associated with grape sugar water, they happened to drink more of it, even after they had already consumed a lot of it beforehand. What happened was that they became indifferent to the food choices and could no longer avoid the sound which was associated with the already consumed drinks. The result indicated that they had lost their natural preferences for novelty.

This research led the researchers to believe that junk food could bring about changes in the reward circuit in the rat’s brain. This part is responsible for the decision making.

In a her statement, Professor Margaret Morris said "The interesting thing about this finding is that if the same thing happens in humans, eating junk food may change our responses to signals associated with food rewards." He added by saying that "It's like you've just had ice cream for lunch, yet you still go and eat more when you hear the ice cream van come by."

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