Animals mimic human love of junk food

YOUNG animals mimic the bad eating habits of humans when tempted with an unlimited supply of fatty foods, researchers have discovered.

YOUNG animals mimic the bad eating habits of humans when tempted with an unlimited supply of high-fat food.

A study at the University of NSW (UNSW) has found rats opt for fat almost every time when offered a choice between healthy rodent fare and pies, chips and cakes.

In an article published in the journal PLOS One, Professor Margaret Morris from UNSW Medicine and PhD student Sarah Martire from UNSW Science write that rats exposed to what they call a cafeteria diet increased their bodyweight by about 270 per cent after 16 weeks, compared with 170 per cent for a control group.

The cafeteria diet is roughly the average Australian intake of 32 per cent fat, 15 per cent protein and 53 per cent carbohydrates.

Another issue was that the cafeteria diet rats snacked between meals and did not compensate by decreasing the number of meals.

Although these rats had healthy food available, this made up less than 10 per cent of their gorging.

"The main point of the paper is that the rats who snacked on unhealthy foods early on ended up becoming heavier," say the authors.

"It is hard to draw a direct link with humans, but we think this is partly what is happening in the Western world because we have so much variety.

"If you give animals unlimited choice of yummy foods, they will behave in a way that will encourage weight gain.

"It seems to us that high-fat foods tend to encourage this sort of consumption."