Arthur C. Brooks explains why we crave junk food: it delivers immediate pleasure but no lasting happiness. High-sugar foods trigger addictive brain responses and mood crashes. Diets rich in saturated fat are linked to memory loss, so moderation matters for your mood and mind.
Why do people eat junk food and desserts? And the answer is because they like it. It feels good because it gives them pleasure. And that pleasure is a little stimulus of a feeling that they like, but you already know that it rarely can translate itself into enjoyment. And so at the end of the day, it's not a source of happiness. As a matter of fact, in excess, food that's high in sugar and processed ingredients, that tends to lead to mood disturbances. The mood benefits that we get, they last a few minutes. But the downside is that you're doing something that typically is addictive, highly processed ingredients, and especially processed sugar. They tend to be very addictive in the way that they affect our brains. Having an occasional piece of chocolate, which I do, is not what we're talking about. Again, this is moderation that we're talking about here. The point is that if I'm left to my devices with this ferocious sweet tooth, I'll eat and eat and eat and eat and eat. It's going to be a problem is the way that that works out. So don't do that. Be moderate with the way that you use junk food and the way that you use desserts, because these are things that have a deleterious impact when you go past moderate levels with respect to your happiness. The same thing is true with diets high in saturated fat. They tend to, believe it or not, be associated with memory impairment. So if you eat something that's like really sweet and full of fat, you might not remember eating it.
