Commentary: Cafeteria diet impairs expression of sensory-specific satiety and stimulus-outcome learning.

Current global estimates indicate that the proportion of adults meeting the criterion for overweight and obesity is 40%, with this proportion expected to increase (Ng et al., 2014). Thus, diet is arguably the largest controllable factor related to the burden of disease, yet changing dietary habits is notoriously difficult (Caballero, 2007) and the reason for this is unknown. Mounting evidence suggests that, in addition to contributing to the unprecedented rates of obesity worldwide (Caballero, 2007), the consumption of high fat, high sugar (HFHS) diets is associated with a range of cognitive impairments in humans (Smith et al., 2011; Gustafon et al., 2012) and non-human animals (Beilharz et al., 2014; Reichelt et al., 2015). Such data raise the possibility that intake of calorically dense foods may alter cognitive capacities critical for food-related decision making and, as a result, make it more difficult for individuals to change their eating behaviors.