You just used addicted and choose it in the same sentence.

"People are addicted" and "actively choose it" are contradictory statements. Addiction is a disease, not a personal failing.

almost every corner of the US you will find basic ingredients (eg rice, beans, carrots, celery, corn, potatoes, pasta) are way less expensive than the pre-prepared slop in boxes

Someone never heard about food deserts.

People are addicted to that sugary shit and actively choose it

Way to victim-blame both addicts and people with little to no healthy choices available.

I know about the uk but not USA. Food inequality is quite a big problem for low-income households.

https://www.turn2us.org.uk/T2UWebsite/media/Documents/Communications%20documents/Living-Without-Report-Final-Web.pdf

(Millions of Britons live without a freezer or oven)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8976549/

(A large number of britons who dont own a car live over a mile from an outlet selling healthy food)

Etc

I was also reading an article about nutritional quality of food itself has been declining over the last 50 years. So to get the same nutritional amount, you need to eat more food period.

There’s also bigger systemic issues about food access that is driving people to “choose” it. Lack of time, cost, availability, transportation all factor in that are beyond a simple idea if a person having a pure choice between two equal (or even somewhat equal) options.

This little bit of news has been hitting the media circuit this week: Americans are eating a meal's worth of calories in snack foods every day

...the average American had between 400 and 500 calories worth of snacks a day, which is typically more than what they ate at breakfast. Even worse, the snacks usually carried little to no nutritional value

All food has gotten expensive due to inflation/greedflation, but (at least in my area) snacks, desserts, and some sugary drinks got hit especially hard. Except maybe for people living in food deserts, snacks are way more of a luxury good than "whole" foods are nowadays.