Junk Food- The Legal Drug

“As a culture, we’ve become upset by the tobacco companies advertising to children, but we sit idly by while the food companies do the very same thing. And we could make a claim that the toll taken on the public health by a poor diet rivals that taken by tobacco.”(Moss). Consumers should buy less junk food because it causes a variety of problems. Junk food causes a major problem in the world today because it is addictive, causes many internal and external problems, and there are many ways to prevent a diet filled with these foods.
Junk food can be a very addictive substance, with the average rate of consumption of junk food for the average American home rising by about one-third of a pound every year. This means that the average intake of salty snacks in general is at around 12 pounds per year (Moss). Foods are addictive for a number of reasons, including the amount of each ingredient being optimized, taste buds building up a tolerance to certain ingredients, and because of the way the food feels in your mouth. Foods are optimized by something called a “bliss point”, which is that point that the consumer most enjoys the product. By taking advantage of this, producers can entice the consumer into buying more (Moss). In doing this, the producer hopes to sell more of their products, causing them to make more money. Another reason a person can become addicted to junk foods is because as they eat more of these sweet or salty products, their taste buds build up a tolerance to that particular flavor or flavors (Moss). It then takes more of that flavor to satisfy their want of that flavor, causing them to buy more, which makes more money for the producers. One other way that producers get people to eat more of the products is the brain...

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... inch, to get you to buy their products (Moss). When their products are bought, consumers can become addicted and gain additional health problems, but there are still things that can be done to prevent them. To prevent this, consumers should stop buying so much junk food. Next time when making a decision on what to eat, think about how it might affect health.

Works Cited

Morris, Ivy. “How Fast Food Affects You Negatively.” SFGate 2014 (12 March 2014)
Moss, Michael. “The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food.” The New York Times 20 February 2013 (12 March 2014)
Style, Serena. “Healthy Alternatives to Eating Fast Food.” SFGate 2014 (12 March 2014)
Whitney, Ellie and Rolfes Sharon R. Understanding Nutrition. Belmont: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2011. Print.