Junk food cravings are triggered by the mere thought of being low class

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When researchers merely prompted study volunteers to consider themselves low-class, they were more likely to prefer, choose, and eat larger amounts of food, as well as higher-calorie foods. The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, echo what’s been seen in a variety of animals—from birds and rodents to nonhuman primates. Thus, the authors speculate that the mental glitch may be an evolutionary holdover intended to boost survival by compensating for a lack of social and material resources.

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In the second experiment, researchers gave 167 participants the same socioeconomic ranking task, then asked them to match high calorie foods (pizza, hamburgers, fried chicken) and low calories foods (vegetables and fruits) with either pleasant or unpleasant descriptors, such as tasty or nasty. Again, those who landed lower on the ladder were more apt to prefer the high-calorie foods.

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In the last two experiments, researchers followed up the socioeconomic task with actual eating experiments. In this part of the study, 83 self-ranked participants got to watch a documentary while munching on their choice of three snacks: potato chips, M&M candies, or raisins. Again the low-ranked participants went for the chips and chocolate more than their higher-ranked counterparts. And finally, researchers gave 148 self-ranked participants a big bowl of noodles and then told them to eat until they were “comfortably full.” The lower-ranked participants ate an average of about 20 percent more calories' worth of noodles.

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