Research paper
Fazzino TL, Rohde K, Sullivan DK. Hyper-palatable foods: development of a quantitative definition and application to the US food system database. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2019;27(11):1761-1768. doi:10.1002/oby.22639. PMID: 31689013.
Why we cite it
The paper that gave hyper-palatable foods a rigorous, quantitative definition — replacing vague descriptors like "junk food" or "fast food" with specific nutrient thresholds that can be measured and tested. Published in *Obesity*, Fazzino and colleagues analyzed 7,757 food items from the USDA Food and Nutrient Database for Dietary Studies (FNDDS) and identified three distinct clusters of nutrient combinations that make foods hyper-palatable: fat+sodium, fat+sugar, and carbohydrates+sodium. The finding with the widest implications: **62% of foods in the US food system meet these criteria** — hyper-palatability isn't the exception, it's the norm. Even more striking, 49% of foods marketed as "low/reduced/no" sugar, fat, or sodium still qualify. For the project, this provides the concrete framework for understanding why environment design matters: if most available foods are engineered to override satiety signals, then "eat less" advice fails not because of individual weakness but because the food environment is stacked against self-regulation.