It's been a long day, and you are still at the office. With your blood sugar plummeting, your brain starts to obsess: Where can I get some food? You gather your money and dash across the street to the fast-food place. But as you bite into the greasy burger, your conscience suddenly kicks in: What am I doing?

It is a common scenario for many of us. Hunger is a potent, if only temporary, condition that can overpower our very best nutritional intentions. In its absence, the brain's cerebrum--governing conscious behavior--helps us make healthy, informed decisions about what we eat. But when our stomachs begin to growl, too often they drown out any good advice coming from our brains. Unfortunately, the short-sighted decisions we make with our stomachs are having an increasingly negative effect on our health.

This article was originally published with the title Addicted to Food?.

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