Back when Kerri Boutelle's children were younger, she remembers watching how kids would eat ice cream cones. She noticed a big difference between some siblings.
"One child would eat half of the ice cream cone and put it down," says Boutelle, who's a psychologist at the University of California, San Diego. Another child would eat their cone extremely fast, grab the leftover cone from the first child, and eat that one, too.
For more than 30 years, Boutelle has helped children with eating disorders and obesity. This informal experiment, she says, illustrates something Boutelle and other scientists are starting to realize: not all children respond to ultra-processed foods in the same way.
Some children are born with what scientists call a strong food reward drive, says psychologist Ashley Gearhardt at the University of Michigan. They feel extra strong motivation to eat. They're hungry often, may eat quickly, and they don't easily feel full or satiated. Kids with a strong food reward drive can regulate their eating with whole or minimally processed foods, she says. But with ultra-processed food, they struggle.
Popular advice around ultra-processed foods probably isn't going to work well when a kid has a strong food reward drive, Gearhardt adds. They need different help and guidance to feel good and stay healthy in our society, where these foods are ubiquitous.
"A strong reward drive served people in times of famine, but it's a nightmare in an ultra-processed food environment," she says.
Does your child have a strong food reward drive?
Today children in the U.S. obtain nearly 70% of their calories — on average — from ultra-processed foods, which contain ingredients rarely found in your kitchen, such as preservatives, natural flavors and emulsifiers. Too many of these foods are tied to a whole host of health problems, including a higher risk of diabetes, heart disease, depression and obesity.
There's a growing consensus among scientists that many ultra-processed foods trigger people to overeat. "Ultra-processed foods are engineered for people to over-consume them," says psychiatrist Agnes Ayton at the Royal College of Psychiatrists in London.
These foods derail two critical aspects of our eating behaviors, Ayton says. They can prompt people to start eating even when they're not hungry, and they can keep us eating even when we're full.
"In our lab, we see that people are pretty good at understanding their hunger and satiety signals when they're eating real food," Gearhardt says. But once you start putting ultra-processed foods on their plates, she says, many people are really bad at eating what their body needs to maintain their weight.
And when you have a strong food reward drive, regulating eating around ultra-processed foods becomes even harder.
Let's go back to Kerri Boutelle's experiment with ice cream and look more closely at each child.
The first kid, who ate only half the cone, has a lower food reward drive. With kids like this, ultra-processed foods don't alter their behavior all that much, Boutelle says. They typically eat when they're hungry and listen to their satiety signals. "They just eat to get full, and then they move on," she says.
The second child, who ate quickly and grabbed the leftovers, has a strong food reward drive. "They want to eat all the time, and it doesn't matter if they're full," Boutelle says. "Those kids are going to gain weight in today's environment" — unless parents help to protect them from the tricks of ultra-processed food.
"I always tell parents, 'the environment today tricks kids into overeating,' " she says. "What you can do as a parent is make your home as safe as it can be for your children."
How to help kids with a strong food reward drive
1. Don't keep a bunch of ultra-processed foods around and then try to regulate how much children eat.
Some families store ultra-processed foods in their home, such as boxes of crackers, granola bars, pretzels and cookies. Then they try to teach children how to eat only a small amount of them at a time, Boutelle says.
"But that's really difficult for children," she says. "And it's setting them up for failure." In fact, that strategy is really difficult for many adults, as well.
2. Try to keep ultra-processed foods out of your home, but allow them elsewhere.
A more effective strategy is not to buy these foods in the first place. And we know this is hard because the grocery stores are full of them. "But for some kids, it will really be beneficial," Boutelle says.
Then you can help children learn to make healthy choices around ultra-processed foods when they're outside the home. Our society provides many opportunities to eat these foods, including parties, sporting events and even school, says psychologist Katherine Schaumberg at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
You don't want to forbid these foods entirely, she says. That strategy could backfire. "In our culture, food is connection. Having these foods in social settings can facilitate emotional health," she says. "That can outweigh the physical cost of them."
3. If you can't keep them all out, keep no more than three ultra-processed items in your house.
Studies show that variety increases eating. So, Boutelle says, limit the options in your home to only a few ultra-processed foods. For example, keep one bag of pretzels and one package of granola bars in the pantry, and that's it. "If you have ice cream, have only one kind," she says.
4. Bring ultra-processed foods into your home only on special occasions.
To help her two boys learn healthy eating habits, Ashley Gearhardt at the University of Michigan keeps her home basically free of ultra-processed foods. "We have minimally processed foods available to them anytime, except bedtime," she says. "If they're hungry, I tell them, 'Grab a banana, an apple, or some cashews. Go grab the minimally processed popcorn that we've got going on.' "
Then she buys ultra-processed foods infrequently and only for special events. "Like, 'Oh, we're having a bunch of friends over. Sure, we'll order a bunch of crappy pizza.' "
"We do not forbid ultra-processed foods, but our baseline is foundationally real food."
This approach works even with her son who has a strong food reward drive, she says. Because he can regulate easily with real food, and he doesn't have to keep resisting the urge for one more cracker, one more pretzel or one more bite of ice cream.
Edited by Jane Greenhalgh
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