The junk-food trap

While scientists have long theorised about an addiction-like quality to certain foods, only recently has the idea been the subject of intense scientific research, writes Laura Beil

SCIENCE is now proving what we’ve long suspected: we’re hard-wired to want the foods that are worst for us.

Like most recovering addicts, Kay Sheppard has a testimony. Hers is this: the Florida mother of two spent years making trips to the supermarket to buy biscuits and crisps for her family, eating almost every bag and box in the car on the way home. Then came the year she bought her dad chocolates for Christmas. She stuffed the sweets into a drawer and later finished off the box — repeating this cycle five times with five boxes of chocolates. One day, she spied herself eating in the mirror and was horrified. “That was the first time in my 30-something years that I ever thought what I was doing was abnormal, because I had done the same thing year after year after year.”