Your favourite chips, cookies, soda -- ultra-processed foods -- can trigger addictive behaviours that meet the same clinical criteria used to diagnose substance-use disorders, warned a study.

Researchers argued that failure to recognise this in diagnostic systems is a dangerous oversight with grave consequences for global public health.

"People aren't becoming addicted to apples or brown rice," said lead author Ashley Gearhardt, Professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, US.