Have you ever walked into a room and instantly forgotten why you went there? Or turned the wrong way on a street you’ve driven a hundred times? Maybe you’ve been feeling scattered, foggy, or easily thrown off when navigating even simple daily tasks.
If you regularly eat foods high in sugar and fat—ice cream, pastries, fast food, chips, chocolate, fancy coffee drinks—you may be surprised to learn this:
Your diet might be disrupting your brain’s internal navigation system.
A groundbreaking 2025 study revealed that eating a high-fat, high-sugar (HFHS) diet isn’t just about weight gain, metabolism, or cravings. It directly affects a specific part of your brain responsible for:
- Spatial navigation
- Learning and memory
- Appetite control and self-regulation
This means your daily donut, drive-thru lunch, or evening snack habit may be impairing how your brain helps you learn, remember, find your way—and even how it helps you stop eating when you’re full.
And for many people, this happens long before there are any visible signs on the scale.
Let’s break this down in simple, empowering terms—and explore what you can do to support your brain starting today.
The Study That Revealed the Hidden Effects of Junk Food on the Brain
A team of researchers from The University of Sydney and UNSW wanted to answer a big question:
Does a diet high in fat and sugar affect the human hippocampus—the brain region that helps us navigate the world and regulate our appetite?
Animal studies have shown this for years, but this study was the first to design a task that reflects true, real-world navigation in humans.
Here’s what they did.
A Virtual Reality Maze to Test “Internal GPS”
Participants put on virtual reality headsets and navigated a 3D maze to find a hidden treasure chest. This wasn’t a basic memory game. The maze required them to:
- Track distance
- Track direction
- Use landmarks to understand where they were
This mimics how you navigate your environment daily—whether you’re finding your car in a parking lot, remembering where you put your keys, or retracing your steps in a grocery store.
The Findings Were Clear—and Concerning
People who ate the most high-fat, high-sugar foods had:
- Slower learning curves (they improved less across the training trials)
- Worse accuracy at remembering the treasure chest’s location
- Greater disorientation when landmarks became their only guide
Most importantly, these effects stayed strong even after accounting for:
- Body Mass Index (BMI)
- Working memory
- General cognitive function
Meaning: You can be thin, smart, and high-functioning—and still have diet-related impairments in your brain’s navigation system. Read on...
These weren’t subtle findings. The participants who consumed the most junk food consistently performed worse at remembering spatial locations.
If you’ve been feeling more forgetful, foggy, or easily disoriented lately, this may not be “just stress” or “getting older.” It may be your brain responding to the foods you crave most.
Why Your “Brain GPS” Matters More Than You Realize
You might be thinking:
“So what if I’m not great at mazes? Why does that matter in everyday life?”
Here’s why.
The study targeted the hippocampus, a brain region crucial for:
- Navigating the world
- Remembering spatial information
- Regulating stress responses
- Learning new tasks
- Controlling appetite and fullness signals
If your hippocampus isn’t functioning optimally, you may notice:
- Getting lost more easily
- Forgetting where you parked
- Misplacing items constantly
- Feeling mentally “off” or foggy
- Struggling to learn new routes or tasks
- Feeling more reactive or stressed
- Experiencing stronger food cravings
- Eating past fullness without understanding why
These are everyday consequences backed by neuroscience—not personal flaws.
And based on the study, these impairments don’t require decades of bad eating habits. Hippocampal changes can begin after short-term exposure to HFHS foods—the very foods many people crave daily.
The Vicious Cycle: Why Junk Food Creates More Cravings
The study also highlighted a powerful framework called the “vicious cycle” hypothesis (page 11 of the study’s visual summary).
Here’s how the cycle works:
- A high-fat, high-sugar diet impairs the hippocampus.
- The hippocampus plays a major role in appetite control.
- When the hippocampus is impaired, appetite-control signals weaken.
- We feel stronger cravings for the foods causing the problem.
- We eat more HFHS foods, which further damages hippocampal function.
- The loop continues.
In short:
Your cravings are not only psychological—they are neurological.
This explains why willpower alone doesn’t work long-term. It’s not that you’re “weak” or “undisciplined.” Your brain’s regulation system is being biologically altered by the very foods you’re trying to stop eating.
And this cycle makes change feel frustratingly hard—unless you intervene at the neurological level.
Junk_Food_Destroys_Your_GPS
The Most Surprising Part: This Has Nothing to Do With Body Weight
One of the most eye-opening findings of the study was that the link between junk food consumption and impaired brain function was:
- Independent of BMI, and
- Independent of general working memory
In other words:
- You can “look healthy” but still have diet-affected brain fog.
- You can “eat whatever you want” and still experience diminishing cognitive function.
- It’s not about calories or dieting—it’s about how the brain reacts biochemically to certain food types.
This is why some people who appear outwardly healthy still struggle deeply with cravings and mental clarity.
Your brain can suffer long before the scale reflects anything at all.
Can Your Brain Recover? The Hopeful Evidence
This is the part I want you to really take in:
The damage is not permanent.
Animal research cited in the study provides strong evidence that:
- Spatial memory impairments caused by HFHS diets are reversible
- Returning to a healthier diet restores hippocampal function
- Training, learning, and behavioral interventions can protect the brain
- Removing HFHS foods can repair cognitive impairments even after they’ve appeared
This suggests that the human brain—your brain—is highly resilient.
You can reclaim sharper thinking.
You can strengthen your brain’s appetite-regulation system.
You can reduce cravings without punishing yourself.
But the shift happens through supporting your brain, not battling your willpower.
How to Support Your Brain and Quiet Cravings: Practical Steps
These steps are not about restriction, dieting, or shame.
They are about repairing your brain’s natural self-regulation system.
1. Start With Awareness, Not Judgment
Acknowledge that your cravings are brain-based, not character-based. Self-compassion helps reduce stress-driven eating.
2. Feed the Hippocampus
Add (don’t restrict) foods that nourish brain cells:
- Omega-3 rich foods
- Leafy greens
- Blueberries
- High-fiber meals
- Nuts and seeds
These foods support neurogenesis—your brain’s ability to grow and repair neurons.
3. Use “Small Shifts” Instead of Overhauls
Swap sugary drinks for flavored sparkling water.
Swap chips for roasted nuts.
Swap fast food with quick-prep protein meals.
These reduce the HFHS load without overwhelming your system.
4. Calm the Craving Pathway
Cravings spike when your nervous system is overloaded.
Breathing techniques, emotional-regulation practices, and micro-pauses before eating help interrupt the loop.
5. Train Your Brain’s Decision-Making System
Small, repeated behaviors that increase self-awareness and self-regulation help strengthen hippocampal pathways damaged by HFHS exposure.
This is exactly where structured behavioral tools make the biggest difference.
You’re Not Broken—Your Brain Is Responding to Your Environment
If you’ve been feeling stuck in an exhausting cycle of cravings, overeating, shame, and frustration… the science is clear:
It’s not a personal failing.
It’s a biological pattern.
And biological patterns can change.
You can retrain your brain.
You can restore clarity and calm.
You can break the craving cycle gently and sustainably.
And you don’t have to do it alone.
Want Support to Break the Craving Cycle? Start Here.
If you’re ready to:
- Quiet your cravings
- Soothe your stress-eating pathways
- Repair the brain circuits involved in self-control
- Build calmer, more confident eating patterns
…then the tools you need are inside my Calm Without Calories Toolkit bundle.
It gives you brain-based strategies to help your hippocampus recover, regulate appetite more effectively, and reduce the mental fog and compulsive pull toward junk foods.
You’ll get:
- Emotional-regulation tools
- Behavioral change frameworks
- Anti-craving scripts and strategies
- Mind–body calming practices
Everything is designed to help you break the cycle gently—not through willpower, but through brain rewiring.
👉 Explore the full Cravings Crusher Toolkit + Calm on Demand Toolkit Bundle here:
https://www.dynamicselfcare.com/cravings-crusher-calm-on-demand-bundle-order
Your brain can heal.
Your cravings can calm.
And this is a powerful place to begin.
Original Research Study Citation -
Tran, D. M. D., Double, K. S., Johnston, I. N., Westbrook, R. F., & Harris, I. M. (2025). Consumption of a diet high in fat and sugar is associated with worse spatial navigation ability in a virtual environment. International Journal of Obesity, 49, 1354–1362. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41366-025-01776-8
