A recent study has shown that, in the entirety of grocery purchases in the country, more than 60 percent of them are actually U.S. processed foods, as the country delves deeper into the health scare of the obesity epidemic, which sees a good number of the population with this major problem.

There was recently an analysis of how people in America buy groceries, it turned out that the majority of the calories purchased came from US processed foods; this is worrying due to the fact that these products usually contained more salt, fat, sugar and extra flavoring.

The recent US processed food study came from the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) along with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, as they took to study how many calories are generally in these types of foods, and they confirmed what had been often thought though never been studied: they truly do contain a lot more damaging components than other foods.

Consumer Health Day reports that the US processed foods study found that not only are these a major part of the consumer's grocery list, they're also higher in damaging components than the other items the average grocery shopper buys, something that came from a statement in the American Society for Nutrition.

"Many Americans have strongly held opinions and beliefs about processed foods," said Dr. Jennifer M. Poti, the leader of the team behind the US processed foods study, according to Science Daily. "Some consider processed foods to be tasty, convenient and affordable choices while others contend that the combination of sugar, fat, salt and flavoring in these foods promotes overeating and contributes to obesity. But until now, we didn't really have the evidence needed to settle this debate: No prior studies have examined whether highly processed foods collectively have a worse nutritional profile than minimally processed foods, using nutrition information and ingredient lists specific for barcoded food and beverage products."

The US processed foods study asked 200,000 households to record the foods and beverages they purchased at grocery stores for one year.