From a young age we’re constantly reminded that eating too much fast food is bad for us, which is basically true. A regular value meal from your local take away contains a lot of calories, fat and chemical additives, which in large doses can reap havoc on our body’s health. Though were you also aware that fast food can be as addictive as popular class A drugs?

Recently a group of medical researchers at the Scripps research center based in Florida decided to test a theory that common fast foods had a desensitizing affect on the human brain, and that this was the main cause of obesity in young people today.

This idea is based on the changes in a drug addict’s brain after taking their drug of choice over a long period of time. For example a cocaine addict’s threshold for pleasure would increase after using this drug for a long time; this is what keeps them coming back for more and increasing their dosage.  

Using two groups of test rats, one fed with fatty, high calorie foods and the other normal rat food, they were fed for a period of 40 days. After this time the researchers tested the rats threshold for pleasure by giving them rewards; interestingly they found that it was harder to satisfy the rats that had eaten fast food. In other words the only thing that interested the rats was eating more fast food; it was also noted that these animals had become obese.