What really is Junk Food? Is it just a few food items in the supermarket aisles or the ones in the gas station shop? Actually, this may be shocking – but Junk food refers to a lot of the foods you see and hopefully ones you don’t consume everyday!
Here’s the real definition: Every food that is highly processed, commercially made.
What Happens During Junk Food Creation
Why? During processing, the final food and the ingredients will not resemble their original, natural state. A majority of the nutrients, fibers and natural constituents will be removed. This is a good way to create the Junk Food in a cheap way, and it’s the standard in commercial food preparation.
Yes, a Junk Food will still contain calories and thus your kids do get calories, but it only gives EMPTY calories – ones that also provide NO nutritional value. Instead, the food is usually loaded with refined sugars, bad fat and bad proteins.
Besides removing all the good constituents from food, the food manufacturer will need to add chemicals, artificial flavors refined sugars, HFCS (High0Fructose Corn Syrup), preservatives, emulsifiers, stabilizers, artificial colors, and you name it. The purpose of this is to make it tasty and eatable and to make it look as if it was actually food.
Those Nasty Ingredients In Junk Food
Have you ever really studied the ingredient list of any commercially made Junk Food? if not, take a look. The list of ingredients is incredible!
When you see the number of ingredients – sometimes two dozen or more – you might ask if that is normal. No, it’s not! The more ingredients you see on the list, the more processed the food is. I call it a “Dead and Deadly Concoction”. So let me ask you a personal question. Why would you give your kids this concoction of chemicals and garbage?
“Junk Food consumption has been linked to shortening life.”
Health Issues from Junk Food are No Joke
Junk Food consumption has been linked to shortening life, especially if consumption starts in the childhood years. Junk Food has also been linked to obesity. The prevalence of obesity among children has increased tremendously. One in 10 kids aged 2-5 are obese and there’s more: 1 in 5 kids aged 6-11.(link for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
The trend is serious because young people that are obese will most likely stay obese for the rest of their lives. Children who are obese also suffer psychologically for it, often being bullied.
Consumption of Junk Food is also linked to an array of diseases that unfortunately are starting to be seen in younger kids. It used to be that diabetes was a disease seen in people in their 50s. Now it’s showing up in children in their teens and early adulthood. Imagine the level of care you
would have to provide a child who has diabetes compared to one who doesn’t have diabetes. Besides diabetes, cardiovascular disease, chronic inflammation, thyroid conditions, and brain health issues are associated with junk food.
Junk Food can be defined also as CHEAP FOOD. WHY GIVE CHEAP FOOD TO YOUR CHILDREN? Junk Food is unfortunately a bad habit that needs to be tackled in society – if we care about the future of our children. The only way to face and act on the problem is to arm yourself with knowledge.
Links For More Information
- What is Wrong with Fast Food, Processed Food? by Joel Furhman
https://youtu.be/zTE18Kv-Maw - Obesity in America
https://youtu.be/NIp1myeV8AU - Fast Food Fast Profit Al Jaz eera
https://youtu.be/slwgXXVXM3I - NCHS Data Brief No 288 Oct 2027 – US Department of Health and Human Services
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db288.htm - Prevalence of Obesity Among Adults and Youth
https://youtu.be/uDPcnBGL-1U
