Why do we crave a lifestyle that is ultimately bad for us?

There are two main reasons why we crave a lifestyle that is bad for us: peer pressure and the power of the media. If we see all our friends eating junk food, we long to fit in socially so this will force us to adopt the bad eating habits even though we know it's not good for us. The media also contributes to our bad eating habits: during a movie or a television show, we are bombarded with commercials demonstrating delicious food and inviting us to come to the restaurant and eat everything in sight! Sometimes, if we teach our kids from an early age to eat healthy foods only, this may break the vicious cycle of bad eating habits.

Why do we do anything?
Peer pressure is a major contributing point, although not the final one.
The answer to that question could cover volumes and the question is far from specific.
In many areas it is something we like to do or is pleasant while the healthy way is not often enjoyable or pleasant. There is also social conversions to be take into consideration. And let's not forget medial pressure.
But let's analyze the question: Crave a lifestyle...I don't think anyone actually desires such a lifestyle - do they? I mean have you ever heard of anyone that must have a particular life style?
A lifestyle that is bad for us: In moderation almost anything is ok while even the best of things in excess is toxic...even oxygen.
But the meaning of the question is rather apparent if inaccurate. In general: why do we do things that are bad for us.
I think that we have to consider society and what is easiest, tasty, fun or relaxing.
For instance we will use a party setting. people like chips so chips are served along with complementary items. Then there is alcohol, it's a drug that in many cases is relaxing, soothing and yes refreshing - did I forget good? So as alcohol lowers the inhibitions and the finger foods occupy the present nervous habits.
Like other respondents I have medical issues prohibiting me from ingesting alcohol and chips as well as many other fun foods leaving me a strict uneventful and un-fun diet. The evens come if I stray and those events aren't fun at all.
To some I might have answered the question while others will probably think I have skirted the issue completely.
So let me summarize, I don't think anyone CRAVES or even is intent on a lifestyle that is bad for them it is just fun and leads a basic form of entertainment and relaxation.

Most of the "bad" foods we crave as specifically designed to appeal to us. Ketcup started by being tomato sauce but over the years they've sweetened it up to appeal to us. Same with french fries and candy and soda. Humans have a sweet craving because back when we were just developing, the only sweet things available to us was honey (and you had to deal with those angry bees) and ripe fruit which was very seasonal so we couldn't eat too much. Now we have access to so many sweet things and we indulge our sweet craving. However, you can train yourself out of all that bad stuff. Somewhere on Yahoo news there was this article (I could not open) about can you go for a month without sweets, alcohol and [caffeine?]. I can because I lost my sweet tooth many years ago and now find anything sweeter then fruit just too sweet. I've never been into much alcohol so it's easy to give up. And my body goes through long periods when it can't handle coffee (too acidic) (and I don't even like chocolate) so I don't ingest caffeine. I have cravings for things like liver (really, not often but when I crave it, it's a real strong craving), or pho, or seafood/fish, healthier stuff like that. Still real strong cravings, just not so bad for me. I do sometimes want potato chips, just the plain salty kind, but that's mostly salt and crunch seducing me--and I eat a small bag and I'm done, happy for a long time after that.

Instincts have nothing to do with a craving for any type of food. It's about the three main senses when food is the subject:

1) Appearance/Presentation
2) Smell/Aroma
3) Taste

What we consider junk food has all three of these "food senses" for lack of a better term, paramount so that it is the first thing children, (the main target market), and some adults think about when having a craving for food. Nutrition is something that one cannot see, taste or smell therefore it happens to be something that is usually the last thing people think about when craving food. (Except for the super health conscious folk).

From an evolutionary standpoint, we didn't need to live to be 100. We just needed to live long enough to make babies and see those babies survived until they could make babies. Maybe 40 or 45 years is enough to do this. And then the things we crave weren't historically available in their present, purified forms. Sugar, for example.
But I also believe, from the same evolutionary standpoint, that we were given rational thinking for similar reasons. We can resist our cravings. Social pressures, like cultural taboos, can make us shy away from certain foods and activities we would normally be drawn to.
And then remember that things are complicated. There's more than one dimension here. A nutritionist I once saw on TV said what I thought was a very wise statement "Don't think in terms of good or bad foods. Think in terms of good or bad diet" Perhaps there's a proper amount of almost anything. And too much or too little, or at the wrong time can be a bad thing. A good example of this is some of the fraternity hazing that involved drinking water. Water good, alcohol bad, right? Well, turns out some of them died from drinking too much water. TV can keep us connected with current cultural trends and the goings on of the rest of the world, in addition to being a passive activity that can rot your brain if you do too much of it.

I think we crave stuff that is bad for us because for some people they like the adrenaline of living a bad lifestyle, and for some people they just don't care at all.
For example, an average teenage girl would go for a bad guy that is extremely confident rather than a nice guy that is shy.

To get on a DNA level of human behavior, its because our mind catches the little things that nobody thinks we would catch onto! Such as tv and subliminal messages our brain catches those subliminal messages and processes them and we act on them thinking well hey this is whats natural. Why do you think kids these days are having sex at a younger and younger age its the music videos they are watching. They may not understand what it is but their brain does. The mind catches things sometimes we don't understand. such as Mc Donalds commercials also have subliminals in it that's the reason why people eat there. Its because their body is always evesdropping on the mind. The brain only thinks and the body acts out that thought. Ask yourself how many people had sex at 11 and 12 when they were younger? exactly no body. But this generation is being taught these things not only in music videos but in cartoons, billborads and anything pretty much main stream.It is up to us to steer their mind to a more productive state of mind. the mind is a terrible thing to waste but yet every hour you watch that tv or cartons or commercials you will become their puppet. So its up to you to take your life back and live for you and yours. Live happily. Live free with no bounderies!! Good luck and I am here to say ITS TIME FOR A CHANGE IN ALL OF US SO WE CAN CREATE OUR KIDS FUTURE!! Have a great Sunday night everyone. Enjoy.

They're not unhealthy unless you go overboard. A lot of people do those things cause they're easy. It's not so easy trying to follow a diet and finding the appropiate foods while shopping. It's not so easy looking for a place to go out, or invest into a hobby, as opposed to watching it on TV. What you see in movies will be better than what you can accomplish in life anyway. Like falling in love in those Nicolas Sparks movies. Try doing that in real life perfectly in one take. Chances are, you'll crash and burn and end up being like any other desparate guy learning pickup techniques or rotting away at the strip clubs.

Ultimately it boils down to advertizement. In the 50's there was a big push by appliance manufacturers to convince women in particular that cooking was a majorly inconvenient task, and was also sexist. This led to less home cooking, and more eating out. Soon more and more companies jumped on the band wagon, and started processing more and more convenient-to-prepare foods. As the woman's liberation movement grew so did the need for faster more convenient food preparation. The preservative/spice most widely used, salt. Like anything else we put into our bodies there becomes an addiction of sorts, and a reaction when there is a lack of it. Soon the American people were hooked on the stuff, and now it dominates our food. Just as sugar does. And why do we consume so much of these? Advertisement. "You are too busy to cook so buy this or come through our drive through!!!! This sugar filled drink will give you the energy you need to make it through your day!!!" Our bodies are, for the most part, very adaptive, and so most of us adapt (maybe evolve is a better term) into needing these chemicals, and pass that need onto our children while others bodies reject the chemicals, which we also pass on to our children. So now high blood pressure, diabetes, and obesity are growing concerns as well as a growing strain on our health care system. Now that we understand what has happened, and why it seems to be too late to convince people to change because of that addictive factor. To make matters worse we have added caffeine into the mix. How many people are convinced that they have to have that first cup of coffee in the morning in order to make it through the day? Where did that argument come from? Advertizement. So, over time we have been convinced into craving a lifestyle that is ultimately bad for us. Only recently has there been a big advertizing push to diet and exercise, and live a more healthy lifestyle. One can only hope that more and more of us will get that message, and change our dietary evolution.

Well, I have to argue with the point of this question's logic. For starters, I don' believe my lifestyle is bad for me at all, really. I'm a gamer, and have been such since I was five. I am smarter than most people in science, have a much more diverse vocabulary, and am more grammatically correct than most. So, my lifestyle isn't what's bad for me, I believe. What I believe is bad for me is my overall outlook on life itself. I am 24 years old working at a job where I get no respect, living with someone who has to rub in my face every time he gets laid while I go for months on end with no action whatsoever. Yet my release from that shitty real world life is in my video games, because when I'm playing video games, I have all the power.

It is rogue advertising of anything and entirely everything that we do not need.Advertising is "hacking" into our sub-conscious mind and automating us to some lifestyle which is "trendy" but not necessary.I am doing this essay about communication;that the more elaborate the means of communication the lesser we communicate.This made me realize that advertising and product development does not entirely give us what we really need but what we are hooked to.How many people in my country for example take personal loans to buy big cars,whereas they have not secured their lives with good insurance and constant income.It is estimated that in my country the youth use roughly 1.1 billion dollars on fashion,expensive lifestyle and gizmos,whereas majority of them do not have jobs.Keep on mind this a third world country. Similarly their have been more and more cases of lifestyle diseases,such as cancer,diabetes and obesity among the 19-25 years bracket.If you look at it carefully we are not consciously craving for a lifestyle but it is a direct effect of mass marketing of things we do not need,especially junk food, more cars,binge watching and other things.At the top of the food chain the corporates are profiting highly from feeding our "craving". We on the other end feel the dreaded side effects which fuels more product development and advertising to "solve our problems"