Why is it so Hard to Overcome the Temptation to Eat Junk Food?

The primary reason why it is so hard to overcome the temptation to eat junk food is that it tastes so good! Once you've tasted chocolate, you're never going to forget what it tastes like or the positive feeling you're left with after eating a bar. One bar is never enough and you're left wanting more, because you get such a high from eating it. It isn't only chocolate that's the problem, though, when there is such a huge range of other goodies that are crammed with too much sugar, salt, fat and calories. Even though you know it's bad for you, you can't seem to stop yourself.

You may want to cut down on the amount of junk food you eat to improve your diet and lose a bit of weight, but eating fruit and vegetables instead of chocolate, cakes or biscuits is often not as satisfying. When you eat junk food you get a sugar rush that gives you energy levels a boost and puts you in a good mood, but soon your energy levels crash and you have to get some more energy from somewhere, so that you may end up just eating more junk food. Clearly, this makes calorie control rather difficult.

It doesn't help that eating junk food becomes a habit. You may get used to having a biscuit or two with your coffee and snacking on chocolate or crisps whilst watching television in the evening. You may turn to junk food when you're feeling down, knowing that it will act as a pick-me-up or consume junk food at meal times because you're not a very good cook! The relationship you develop with junk food becomes extremely difficult to break, as you have to eat something every day and you come to associate eating junk food with positive emotions.

Junk food might be bad for you, but that is perhaps part of the appeal. You know you shouldn't eat it, so you get even more enjoyment out of doing so. As soon as you tell yourself you shouldn't eat it, you want it all the more and instead of fighting the temptation, it is much easier to give into it, which, more often than not, is precisely what you do. It doesn't help that junk food is relatively cheap and so readily accessible.

Whenever you go food shopping, you're surrounded by biscuits, cakes, sweets, chocolates and an assortment of other goodies. You buy some, take it home and it just stays in your cupboard until you eat it! When you've bought it and it's just lying there you're going to eat it. To avoid eating junk food it makes sense not to buy it in the first place, but the trouble is when you enter a shop everything looks so appealing and you know it tastes really good, so that in the end you just give into temptation.