Story at-a-glance

• Ultraprocessed foods are designed to melt in your mouth and bypass the need for chewing, which blocks your brain’s ability to register fullness and drives you to overeat
• Food companies use sound, smell, appearance, and packaging to stimulate your senses and condition your brain to crave their products through a marketing tactic called sonic branding
• Snack products are marketed to dominate your day — from breakfast shakes to bedtime treats — fueling constant grazing that rewires your brain and leads to compulsive eating
• Seemingly “healthy” snack foods like veggie straws and protein bars are loaded with empty calories that trick you into thinking you're making better choices, when in fact they disrupt hunger and satisfaction cues
• These foods trigger the same dopamine-driven reward pathways in the brain as addictive substances like alcohol and nicotine, which explains why it's so hard to stop eating them — even when you know they’re harming your health