Fatty foods should be sold in plain packaging to help the battle against obesity, a leading neuroscientist has said.

Wolfram Shultz, who was yesterday revealed as the joint winner of a €1 million (£864,600) prize for a lifetime’s work understanding the brain’s decision making process, said the colourful wrapping and attractive advertising of calorie-rich foods triggered chemicals which encouraged people to overeat.

The Cambridge University academic is one of the pioneers of the understanding of how dopamine functions as a “reward” agent in the brain, and how humans learn to adapt behaviour to prompt the release of the chemical messenger.