speech on junk food and health issues

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• Speech on Junk Food

Introduction

Over the years, the intake of junk food among the young age groups has only increased. Adolescents especially are the ones who are on the margin of high consumption of junk food. Any type of food that has more harmful ingredients like less nutrition-rich food is considered to be junk. Junk food according to research has shown that when regularly consumed it can cause severe damage to the health of an individual. In this article Speech On Harmful effects of junk food and speech on health hazards of junk food is discussed to help you get a better understanding of different ways of speech writing on junk food. The much-relished fast foods also fall under the umbrella of junk food. And to keep healthy one must keep at bay from such food. Different ways to deliver this message can be a long speech on avoiding junk food or a short speech on saying no to junk food.

Long and Short Speech on Junk Food 

Long speech on junk food.

This form of the long speech on junk food is extremely helpful for students in grades 8-12 who are assigned to deliver a 5-minute speech. 

Good morning to everyone present here, respected Principal, teachers, and my dear friends, I am Abc (mention your name) here to speak about a topic we know of but not entirely that is junk food. Yes, aren’t we all aware of the delicious junk food. In fact, we eat more junk food than healthy food without realizing what the consequences will be. 

Before going ahead let me ask you all a question about your breakfast habits. Do you actually take the time to consider what you eat as the most important meal like having fruits, toast, idli, dosa, etc or do you just buy something like a heavy cheesy sandwich from our canteens? I am certain we all act according to our convenience without considering the effects on our health.

It is indeed the changing times that we have been totally neglectful towards what we put into our bodies. Especially in metropolitan cities and towns where there is a surplus of junk food available it is more likely that everyone will consume it more. The main reason for it being so much in demand is because of its cheap price which is the perfect fit for teenagers and youngsters for the affordability of these products. 

Another main reason apart from being available for affordable prices is its delicious taste. Because of this very reason, it has more repeat value for the young kids and they seem to form an addiction to such kinds of foods. The other attracting quality of this junk food is that it is readily available at all times. Be it on the streets or now even in fast-food restaurants. So people find it extremely convenient to either eat on-site or even take away because it takes very little time to prepare.  

Junk in itself means waste and junk food also contains all the waste and unwanted additives and ingredients with high calories because of fat and sugar that is added in abundance. It also lacks everything good that is required for the body to function properly as the proper quantity of protein, fibers, vitamins, and minerals. It also contains trans-fats that are truly damaging in the long term and even in the short term period. 

These full of fats junk foods are, fried chicken, pizza, burger, noodles, pasta, hot dogs, potato chips like lays, puffcorn, popcorn, doughnuts, french fries, icecreams, tacos, cookies, and pancakes and as I mention this I am fully aware that there are many of our favorite food items in these. And while one can enjoy these once in a while and should not be consumed regularly. This is because it can lead to obesity, which will hamper appetite and digestion. 

And eventually lead to lethargy, inactive lifestyle, and depression. All of this in no way sounds kind to the children’s growth and development. Even though there are many KFC outlets and pizza outlets we must keep in mind that we are what we eat and avoid visiting such restaurants that serve so much junk food. Instead, go for fruits and vegetable vendors and exercise into a healthy lifestyle and healthy body. These small changes can lead to so many beneficial outcomes and we must start immediately. Start living a good life and stay healthy.

Short Speech on Junk Food

This kind of speech on junk food is short and hence can be extremely beneficial for students in grades 4-8 who can deliver a simple speech and cover all the important points.

Good morning all, respected Principal, teachers, and my dear friends today I am here to speak on the topic of junk food. Junk food is termed junk food because all the components in it are waste, unhealthy and unimportant. These components are oil, trans fats instead of the good omega fats, sugar, fats, calories, minimal to no proteins, and fibers. 

Even with so many problems, the endorsement of it is very alluring. Junk food, mostly fast foods, are easily available on the streets. It is charged at a reasonable price so even the young ones are buying without any issues and since it is also delicious it is very appealing. 

We learn the components that have to be consumed for a healthy body and the food chart clearly mentions consuming less of all the components that are abundantly present in junk food. Yet we keep falling prey to such false advertisements of burgers, biryanis, pizzas, pasta, chips, and noodles.  

The problem with all of this is not the availability of it and the accessibility of the junk food; it is how regularly the choice of eating such unhealthy food is being made instead of the good homemade and fine food.

Our health is in our own hands, and we can make the choice to either destroy it or conserve and preserve it to live a long and healthy life. Let us all make this choice sooner rather than later so we do not regret our decisions when we have diabetes, obesity, depression, heart diseases, cholesterol early in our lives. The time is now to make healthy choices and let us pledge to do so by avoiding harmful foods that damage our health and body.

Thank you.  

10 Lines Speech on Junk Food

This is a short speech on saying no to junk food especially helpful for the students in grades 1-3 highlighting the harmful effects of junk food.

The cause of the rising obesity and a lethargic lifestyle among teenagers and the youth is the heavy consumption of junk food. 

The components of junk food are very harmful and lead to serious illnesses.

It is not body-friendly and causes an increase in fat levels of the body, which leads to cholesterol, blood pressure, heart diseases, obesity, and depression.

Such foods even though delicious are damaging. And the deliciousness can be appealing to the tongue since everyone seems to relish its taste but not to the body and its functions. 

Certain types of junk foods are chips, fried foods like deep-fried samosa, fried chicken, noodles, pasta, burgers, french fries, etc.

They have trans-fats and an immense quantity of oil, and sugar that is very difficult to digest.

It has no proteins, fibers, good minerals, and vitamins.

It hampers the digestive system by destroying the digestive juices and thus reducing the metabolism.

With so many problems children suffer from a lack of growth and development and start leading a lethargic and inactive life.

Hence one must say no to junk food and yes to healthy dietary foods that keep us safe and help us live longer. And one must encourage others to opt for such healthy lifestyle changes as well.

Intake of junk food is very harmful to one’s health. We all know that. It has always been an issue. But, with the passage of time, it has become more of a bigger issue. This is due to the fact that the consumption of such foods has witnessed tremendous growth. And the big part of the statistics is that more and more teens and adolescents have been consuming them in increased amounts every year. There are many studies that have some very thought-provoking statistics. 

Importance of a Speech on Junk Food

Various studies show the very consequences that have surfaced after so much consumption of junk food. As a result, it is a very important topic for schools to discuss with the students. And what better way to do that than with a speech from a fellow student?

Yes, many schools have been leaning towards the idea of starting a conversation with their students on the topic of the extreme consumption of junk food. Their fellow classmates, then not only listen to it but also pay attention to it. With accessibility to Junk Food in almost every corner of the city and on every road, it is hard to be ignored. And hence, it is significant that the students are educated in this area so as to lead a healthy lifestyle.

FAQs on Speech on Junk Food

1. How frequently should one have junk food?

It is advised by various healthcare experts and doctors for one to not have junk food regularly. One can go on consuming it in moderation, once or twice a week, but not more than that. But regular consumption can be bad for one’s health. One must also ensure to replace their junk food with substitutes that are healthy instead. Experts also claim that with the decreased rate of consumption of junk food, one can stay healthy for longer. This will also help them with preventing various diseases, which may happen now or later in their life.

2. What should a speech on junk food contain?

Promoting a healthy diet via a speech on junk food might be easy. All one has to do is speak a bunch of words about how junk food is bad for their health. However, the case with such a speech is that it is focussed more on the facts about junk food. What one needs to do is provide a proper solution to the problem. With that kept in mind, one can showcase the health effects of a balanced diet. They can count a few substitutes that can be used or much healthier counterparts that can be consumed instead of junk food. They can also give advice on how healthy food can also be made tasty with the help of some spices.

3. How can one promote having a healthy diet in a speech on junk food?

4. Where can I get more information about how to give a speech on junk food?

A speech on junk food for students is something that is pretty easy. However, it is the delivering part of the speech that might get tricky. In such a case, one can always ask their teacher for help. Another one who can come to their rescue is Vedantu, where they can easily get so many pointers that can help them nail their speech. From a short speech to a long speech, Vedantu helps the students with giving their best speech in English.

5. Who can guide the students to give a speech on junk food in English?

Students who are about to give a speech require some much-needed guidance when it comes to delivering a speech. With such a task, a teacher can act as their mentor, their guide and help them do the deed with confidence. They can help the students at every stage, from preparing the speech with the help of Vedantu to rehearsing their enunciation of words. The students must be well in terms of the language they are giving the speech in as well, in this case, it is English.

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Speech On Junkfood - 10 Lines, Short and Long Speech

People love to eat fast food and junk food these days because of their extraordinary taste. The popularity of junk food can be attributed to a number of factors. The fact that they are tasty and simple to make is the main factor. They are available in your nearby store for a reasonable price.

10-Lines on Junkfood

Junk food is very harmful to our health. Packaged and oily food items sold in the market are junk food.

Junk food is quite popular among the youth and children nowadays.

Junk food is a type of food that does not benefit our bodies when consumed.

Although junk food may taste good, it does not nourish our bodies.

On the contrary, it causes harm to the body. Junk food contains high levels of salt, calories and cholesterol.

High calories lead to obesity, high salt causes diabetes, and high cholesterol leads to severe heart-related diseases.

There are many illnesses, including digestive system issues, liver issues, breast cancer, hypertension, bone issues, diabetes, premature aging, heart problems, and cancer.

As a result, they are parents who bear complete responsibility for their children's good and bad habits.

Parents are also advised to make delicious food at home for their children so they do not eat junk food from the market due to their cravings.

They should explain the differences between health-improving foods and junk food, as well as the eating habits they had as children, to their children.

Short Speech On Junkfood

Junk food is a term used to describe food that is high in calories, low in essential nutrients, and lacking in vital vitamins and minerals. This food often contains high amounts of sugar, salt, and fat and is often easily accessible, making it a popular choice for many individuals.

Why Is Junk Food Harmful

One of the primary reasons junk food is harmful is its high-calorie content and low nutrient value. Consuming large amounts of junk food can result in weight gain, and a lack of physical activity only exacerbates the problem. Junk food is also known for causing spikes in blood sugar levels, leading to fatigue, irritability, and even depression.

To make healthier food choices, we must educate ourselves on our food ingredients. We can improve our health by reading food labels and selecting options that are high in fibre, minerals, and vitamins and low in sugar, salt, and fat. Additionally, planning and having readily available healthy meals can help us make healthier choices.

In conclusion, while junk food may seem easy and convenient, its negative effects on our health cannot be ignored. By making informed choices and prioritising a balanced diet with various fruits, whole grains, vegetables, and lean protein sources, we can improve our well-being and lead happier and healthier lives.

Long Speech On JunkFood

Junk food has a very good taste, which is why people of almost all ages enjoy it, especially young children and those who are in school or attending college. Children frequently consume large amounts of junk food from an early age, which causes them to exhibit this tendency. Consequently, if the parents are not reined in, the issue of eating junk food leads to significant problems.

Scientists' research has revealed various ways in which they negatively impact health. They contain many calories, cholesterol, sodium, sugar, straw, unhealthy fat, and a lack of nutrients and protein.

Junk food: what is it?

Junk food is more damaging to the human body if described in simple terms. Junk food has detrimental long-term effects on the body and is a quick way to gain weight. Junk food has a good taste and looks good, but it does not provide the body with the necessary amount of healthy calories. French fries, fried foods, pizza, burgers, candies, cold drinks, ice cream, and other foods fall into this category. Possess high fat and sugar content.

The Central Controller of Diseases and Prevention Center reports that children and adolescents who consume junk food have various forms of diabetes. These multiple forms of diabetes cannot control the body's normal sugar levels. Obesity and overweight risk are increased as the disease progresses. The chance of kidney failure is also increased.

The effects of eating fast food.

Our bodies become malnourished if we consume junk food daily. They lack essential vitamins, minerals, iron, and other nutrients. Due to its high fat, sodium, and bad cholesterol content, it also raises the risk of fatal cardiovascular diseases. Bad cholesterol and too much sodium raise the body's blood pressure while preventing the heart from experiencing too much pressure—the likelihood of gaining weight increases when one consumes more junk food.

Junk food contains a lot of carbohydrates, which quickly raise blood sugar levels and make people sluggish. When this food is consumed frequently, a person's image and sense organs slowly die. They consequently lead very dull lives. Junk food is the cause of constipation and many illnesses, including diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, and others, which result from inadequate nutrition.

My Experience

Recently, I joined the hostel. I got a roommate who was a big fan of junk food. She used to skip the meals provided in that mess and rely on the junk she purchased. Even though many of her friends and I suggested not eating junk food, she never cared. But one day, she was diagnosed with an ulcer caused by the acidifier in the junk she ate. And now she can't even enjoy regular food.

Junk food is very bad for us, and eating it frequently can lead to serious health issues. We should avoid using it altogether and only consume minimal amounts of it. Since junk food eaters consume significantly less food than average, children also develop obesity. As a result, we should steer clear of junk food and live a safe and healthy lifestyle.

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The Impacts of Junk Food on Health

Energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods, otherwise known as junk foods, have never been more accessible and available. Young people are bombarded with unhealthy junk-food choices daily, and this can lead to life-long dietary habits that are difficult to undo. In this article, we explore the scientific evidence behind both the short-term and long-term impacts of junk food consumption on our health.

Introduction

The world is currently facing an obesity epidemic, which puts people at risk for chronic diseases like heart disease and diabetes. Junk food can contribute to obesity and yet it is becoming a part of our everyday lives because of our fast-paced lifestyles. Life can be jam-packed when you are juggling school, sport, and hanging with friends and family! Junk food companies make food convenient, tasty, and affordable, so it has largely replaced preparing and eating healthy homemade meals. Junk foods include foods like burgers, fried chicken, and pizza from fast-food restaurants, as well as packaged foods like chips, biscuits, and ice-cream, sugar-sweetened beverages like soda, fatty meats like bacon, sugary cereals, and frozen ready meals like lasagne. These are typically highly processed foods , meaning several steps were involved in making the food, with a focus on making them tasty and thus easy to overeat. Unfortunately, junk foods provide lots of calories and energy, but little of the vital nutrients our bodies need to grow and be healthy, like proteins, vitamins, minerals, and fiber. Australian teenagers aged 14–18 years get more than 40% of their daily energy from these types of foods, which is concerning [ 1 ]. Junk foods are also known as discretionary foods , which means they are “not needed to meet nutrient requirements and do not belong to the five food groups” [ 2 ]. According to the dietary guidelines of Australian and many other countries, these five food groups are grains and cereals, vegetables and legumes, fruits, dairy and dairy alternatives, and meat and meat alternatives.

Young people are often the targets of sneaky advertising tactics by junk food companies, which show our heroes and icons promoting junk foods. In Australia, cricket, one of our favorite sports, is sponsored by a big fast-food brand. Elite athletes like cricket players are not fuelling their bodies with fried chicken, burgers, and fries! A study showed that adolescents aged 12–17 years view over 14.4 million food advertisements in a single year on popular websites, with cakes, cookies, and ice cream being the most frequently advertised products [ 3 ]. Another study examining YouTube videos popular amongst children reported that 38% of all ads involved a food or beverage and 56% of those food ads were for junk foods [ 4 ].

What Happens to Our Bodies Shortly After We Eat Junk Foods?

Food is made up of three major nutrients: carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. There are also vitamins and minerals in food that support good health, growth, and development. Getting the proper nutrition is very important during our teenage years. However, when we eat junk foods, we are consuming high amounts of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats, which are quickly absorbed by the body.

Let us take the example of eating a hamburger. A burger typically contains carbohydrates from the bun, proteins and fats from the beef patty, and fats from the cheese and sauce. On average, a burger from a fast-food chain contains 36–40% of your daily energy needs and this does not account for any chips or drinks consumed with it ( Figure 1 ). This is a large amount of food for the body to digest—not good if you are about to hit the cricket pitch!

• Figure 1 - The nutritional composition of a popular burger from a famous fast-food restaurant, detailing the average quantity per serving and per 100 g.
• The carbohydrates of a burger are mainly from the bun, while the protein comes from the beef patty. Large amounts of fat come from the cheese and sauce. Based on the Australian dietary guidelines, just one burger can be 36% of the recommended daily energy intake for teenage boys aged 12–15 years and 40% of the recommendations for teenage girls 12–15 years.

A few hours to a few days after eating rich, heavy foods such as a burger, unpleasant symptoms like tiredness, poor sleep, and even hunger can result ( Figure 2 ). Rather than providing an energy boost, junk foods can lead to a lack of energy. For a short time, sugar (a type of carbohydrate) makes people feel energized, happy, and upbeat as it is used by the body for energy. However, refined sugar , which is the type of sugar commonly found in junk foods, leads to a quick drop in blood sugar levels because it is digested quickly by the body. This can lead tiredness and cravings [ 5 ].

• Figure 2 - The short- and long-term impacts of junk food consumption.
• In the short-term, junk foods can make you feel tired, bloated, and unable to concentrate. Long-term, junk foods can lead to tooth decay and poor bowel habits. Junk foods can also lead to obesity and associated diseases such as heart disease. When junk foods are regularly consumed over long periods of time, the damages and complications to health are increasingly costly.

Fiber is a good carbohydrate commonly found in vegetables, fruits, barley, legumes, nuts, and seeds—foods from the five food groups. Fiber not only keeps the digestive system healthy, but also slows the stomach’s emptying process, keeping us feeling full for longer. Junk foods tend to lack fiber, so when we eat them, we notice decreasing energy and increasing hunger sooner.

Foods such as walnuts, berries, tuna, and green veggies can boost concentration levels. This is particularly important for young minds who are doing lots of schoolwork. These foods are what most elite athletes are eating! On the other hand, eating junk foods can lead to poor concentration. Eating junk foods can lead to swelling in the part of the brain that has a major role in memory. A study performed in humans showed that eating an unhealthy breakfast high in fat and sugar for 4 days in a row caused disruptions to the learning and memory parts of the brain [ 6 ].

Long-Term Impacts of Junk Foods

If we eat mostly junk foods over many weeks, months, or years, there can be several long-term impacts on health ( Figure 2 ). For example, high saturated fat intake is strongly linked with high levels of bad cholesterol in the blood, which can be a sign of heart disease. Respected research studies found that young people who eat only small amounts of saturated fat have lower total cholesterol levels [ 7 ].

Frequent consumption of junk foods can also increase the risk of diseases such as hypertension and stroke. Hypertension is also known as high blood pressure and a stroke is damage to the brain from reduced blood supply, which prevents the brain from receiving the oxygen and nutrients it needs to survive. Hypertension and stroke can occur because of the high amounts of cholesterol and salt in junk foods.

Furthermore, junk foods can trigger the “happy hormone,” dopamine , to be released in the brain, making us feel good when we eat these foods. This can lead us to wanting more junk food to get that same happy feeling again [ 8 ]. Other long-term effects of eating too much junk food include tooth decay and constipation. Soft drinks, for instance, can cause tooth decay due to high amounts of sugar and acid that can wear down the protective tooth enamel. Junk foods are typically low in fiber too, which has negative consequences for gut health in the long term. Fiber forms the bulk of our poop and without it, it can be hard to poop!

Tips for Being Healthy

One way to figure out whether a food is a junk food is to think about how processed it is. When we think of foods in their whole and original forms, like a fresh tomato, a grain of rice, or milk squeezed from a cow, we can then start to imagine how many steps are involved to transform that whole food into something that is ready-to-eat, tasty, convenient, and has a long shelf life.

For teenagers 13–14 years old, the recommended daily energy intake is 8,200–9,900 kJ/day or 1,960 kcal-2,370 kcal/day for boys and 7,400–8,200 kJ/day or 1,770–1,960 kcal for girls, according to the Australian dietary guidelines. Of course, the more physically active you are, the higher your energy needs. Remember that junk foods are okay to eat occasionally, but they should not make up more than 10% of your daily energy intake. In a day, this may be a simple treat such as a small muffin or a few squares of chocolate. On a weekly basis, this might mean no more than two fast-food meals per week. The remaining 90% of food eaten should be from the five food groups.

In conclusion, we know that junk foods are tasty, affordable, and convenient. This makes it hard to limit the amount of junk food we eat. However, if junk foods become a staple of our diets, there can be negative impacts on our health. We should aim for high-fiber foods such as whole grains, vegetables, and fruits; meals that have moderate amounts of sugar and salt; and calcium-rich and iron-rich foods. Healthy foods help to build strong bodies and brains. Limiting junk food intake can happen on an individual level, based on our food choices, or through government policies and health-promotion strategies. We need governments to stop junk food companies from advertising to young people, and we need their help to replace junk food restaurants with more healthy options. Researchers can focus on education and health promotion around healthy food options and can work with young people to develop solutions. If we all work together, we can help young people across the world to make food choices that will improve their short and long-term health.

Obesity : ↑ A disorder where too much body fat increases the risk of health problems.

Processed Food : ↑ A raw agricultural food that has undergone processes to be washed, ground, cleaned and/or cooked further.

Discretionary Food : ↑ Foods and drinks not necessary to provide the nutrients the body needs but that may add variety to a person’s diet (according to the Australian dietary guidelines).

Refined Sugar : ↑ Sugar that has been processed from raw sources such as sugar cane, sugar beets or corn.

Saturated Fat : ↑ A type of fat commonly eaten from animal sources such as beef, chicken and pork, which typically promotes the production of “bad” cholesterol in the body.

Dopamine : ↑ A hormone that is released when the brain is expecting a reward and is associated with activities that generate pleasure, such as eating or shopping.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

[1] ↑ Australian Bureau of Statistics. 2013. 4324.0.55.002 - Microdata: Australian Health Survey: Nutrition and Physical Activity, 2011-12 . Australian Bureau of Statistics. Available online at: http://bit.ly/2jkRRZO (accessed December 13, 2019).

[2] ↑ National Health and Medical Research Council. 2013. Australian Dietary Guidelines Summary . Canberra, ACT: National Health and Medical Research Council.

[3] ↑ Potvin Kent, M., and Pauzé, E. 2018. The frequency and healthfulness of food and beverages advertised on adolescents’ preferred web sites in Canada. J. Adolesc. Health. 63:102–7. doi: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2018.01.007

[4] ↑ Tan, L., Ng, S. H., Omar, A., and Karupaiah, T. 2018. What’s on YouTube? A case study on food and beverage advertising in videos targeted at children on social media. Child Obes. 14:280–90. doi: 10.1089/chi.2018.0037

[5] ↑ Gómez-Pinilla, F. 2008. Brain foods: the effects of nutrients on brain function. Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 9, 568–78. doi: 10.1038/nrn2421

[6] ↑ Attuquayefio, T., Stevenson, R. J., Oaten, M. J., and Francis, H. M. 2017. A four-day western-style dietary intervention causes reductions in hippocampal-dependent learning and memory and interoceptive sensitivity. PLoS ONE . 12:e0172645. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0172645

[7] ↑ Te Morenga, L., and Montez, J. 2017. Health effects of saturated and trans-fatty acid intake in children and adolescents: systematic review and meta-analysis. PLoS ONE. 12:e0186672. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0186672

[8] ↑ Reichelt, A. C. 2016. Adolescent maturational transitions in the prefrontal cortex and dopamine signaling as a risk factor for the development of obesity and high fat/high sugar diet induced cognitive deficits. Front. Behav. Neurosci. 10. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2016.00189

Speech on Junk Food

You might love the taste of junk food. It’s quick, it’s convenient, and it’s usually full of flavor. But do you know what’s really in those tasty treats?

Junk food often packs more than just calories. It can be a source of unhealthy fats, sugars, and other ingredients that aren’t good for your body.

1-minute Speech on Junk Food

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good day to you all. Today, I stand before you to speak on a topic that concerns our health and lifestyle choices – ‘Junk Food’. We all know what junk food is. It’s those tasty burgers, pizzas, chips and sodas that make our mouths water. But have we ever paused to think about the effects they have on our health?

Junk food is high in calories, sugars, and fats. These elements, consumed in large quantities, can lead to obesity, a condition that is becoming increasingly common worldwide. Obesity can lead to serious health issues like heart diseases, diabetes and high blood pressure.

Not to mention, consumption of junk food can also lead to poor nutrition as they often lack the essential vitamins, proteins and minerals that our body needs to function properly. A diet high in junk food can lead to deficiencies that can have long-term health effects, especially in children and teenagers.

Additionally, junk food consumption can also affect our mental health. Studies have shown a link between a high junk food diet and mental health disorders like depression and anxiety.

In conclusion, while junk food may be tantalizing to our taste buds, they pose a serious risk to our physical and mental health. It is important for us to make wise food choices and balance our diet with nutritious food. After all, health is wealth.

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• Essay on Junk Food
• 10-lines on Junk Food

2-minute Speech on Junk Food

Good day to one and all. Today, I am going to talk about a subject that is very close to our hearts and our health: junk food. Junk food, as the name suggests, has nothing but ‘junk’ value in it. It is high in salt, sugar and fat, offering minimal nutritional value.

Junk food is everywhere. It’s in our schools, it’s in our homes, it’s in the restaurants and supermarket aisles. It is often attractively packaged, aggressively marketed, and designed to appeal to our taste buds. It is fast, it is convenient and it’s often cheaper. No wonder it is so hard to resist!

But, what makes junk food so harmful for us? It’s the high levels of salt, sugar and unhealthy fats. These ingredients not only lack nutritional value, but overconsumption can lead to negative health impacts. Eating too much junk food can lead to obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and other health problems. It also affects our energy levels, mood, and ability to concentrate.

On the other hand, we have healthy food choices such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins which are full of essential nutrients. These foods help keep our bodies functioning well, boost our immune system, and help prevent chronic diseases like cancer and heart disease.

So, why do we choose junk food over healthier options? Is it because it’s cheaper? Or more convenient? Or is it because we’re addicted to the taste? The answer, most likely, is a combination of all these factors. For many people, junk food has become a part of their lifestyle.

However, change is possible. By making small changes in our eating habits, we can make a big difference in our health. We can start by reducing the amount of junk food we consume. We can swap out sugary drinks for water, and chips for fruits and vegetables. We can cook at home more often, allowing us to control what goes into our meals.

Schools can play a crucial role in promoting healthy eating habits among children. They can provide healthy meals and snacks, and educate students about the importance of good nutrition. Parents too, have an important role in setting a good example and making healthy food choices for their children.

The government can also help by regulating the marketing and sale of junk food, particularly to children. Policies such as taxing sugary drinks, restricting junk food advertising, and improving labeling on food products can steer people towards healthier choices.

In conclusion, junk food may be appealing for its taste, convenience and price, but the costs to our health are high. By making healthier food choices, we can improve our health and well-being. Remember, we are what we eat. Let’s choose to nourish our bodies, not harm them. The choice is ours.

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Speech on Junk Food

One of the most important topics relevant for elocution or group discussion, especially among students, is junk food. Since junk food is loved by all, when it comes to citing the pros and cons of having junk food, students mostly find it hard to spot its cons! This article will cover all the relevant points that are necessary for giving a speech on junk food. 

Table of Contents

What is junk food.

• How Does Junk Food Affect Your Bodies?

Ways to Keep Your Body Healthy

• FAQs on Junk Food

The main reason why children are so obsessed with junk food is that they don’t really know which kinds of foods fall under the category of junk food. Junk food includes all those foods which are packed or processed, and contain immense amounts of calories (either fat or sugar). They have very little nutritional value. Foods like chips, chocolates, soft drinks, and fried foods are some of the common junk foods. 

How Does Junk Food Affect Your Body?

It’s evident that people of all ages love gorging on junk food, but having it on a daily basis will have adverse effects on your bodies. Let’s see how having junk food affects your bodies.

• Have you noticed that nowadays most people, including school-going children, are suffering from high cholesterol or high blood pressure problems? These are mainly due to all the junk food they’ve consumed.
• Most children of all ages suffer from indigestion and irregular bowel movements. This is mainly because children nowadays enjoy eating unhealthy food rather than healthy food.
• Since these junk foods taste great, you don’t keep check of how many calories you are taking in. Excess calories on a daily basis cause multiple health issues, thereby hindering normal body functions.

If asked to stop eating junk food, it would be kind of an impossible task for many. How to keep the body healthy even after consuming junk food once in a while? Here are some ways to maintain proper health and still have some junk food in your diet.

• One of the simple ways to keep your body healthy is by including green leafy vegetables and fibrous fruits in your diet. These vegetables and fruits absorb and remove all toxins in your bodies.
•  Every person should intake the right amount of calories to maintain their body weight. So keep your calorie count in check. 
• Try to avoid consumption of high amounts of saturated fats especially found in red meat, cookies, pastries, chocolates, etc. These foods increase the risk of heart diseases later in life. If you want to eat, try to have these kinds of foods once or twice a month.

Frequently Asked Questions on Junk Food 

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Junk food and the brain: How modern diets lacking in micronutrients may contribute to angry rhetoric

Professor Emerita, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary

Professor of Psychology, University of Canterbury

Disclosure statement

Bonnie Kaplan receives funding from no organization currently, because she is retired. But during her career she received many grants from private foundations (donor funds) and from provincial funding competitions. Her only current affiliation is as a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the John W. Brick Foundation.

Julia J Rucklidge receives or has received research funding from Health Research Council (NZ), Waterloo Foundation, Vic Davis Memorial Trust, University of Canterbury Foundation, Canterbury Medical Research Foundation, GAMA Foundation, and the Foundation for Excellence in Mental Health Care.

University of Calgary provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation CA.

University of Canterbury provides funding as a member of The Conversation AU.

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Emotional, non-rational, even explosive remarks in public discourse have escalated in recent years. Politicians endure insults during legislative discussions ; scientists receive emails and tweets containing verbal abuse and threats .

What’s going on? This escalation in angry rhetoric is sometimes attributed to social media . But are there other influences altering communication styles?

As researchers in the field of nutrition and mental health, and authors of The Better Brain , we recognize that many in our society experience brain hunger, impairing their cognitive function and emotion regulation.

Ultra-processed products

Obviously, we are not deficient in macronutrients: North Americans tend to get sufficient protein, fats (though usually not the best fats) and carbohydrates (usually not the good complex carbs). But we are being cheated of micronutrients (minerals and vitamins), particularly in those whose food choices are dominated by ultra-processed products.

Ultra-processed products include things like soft drinks, packaged snacks, sweetened breakfast cereal and chicken nuggets. They generally contain only trivial amounts of a few micronutrients unless they are fortified, but even then, only a few at higher amounts.

Three published analyses from the 2004 Canadian Community Health Survey and the 2018 U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey revealed these sobering statistics: in Canada, in 2004, 48 per cent of the caloric intake across all ages came from ultra-processed products; in the United States 67 per cent of what children aged two to 19 years consumed and 57 per cent of what adults consumed in 2018 were ultra-processed products.

Most of us are aware that dietary intake is a huge issue in physical health because diet quality is associated with chronic health conditions such as obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease . The public is less aware of the impact of nutrition on brain health.

Micronutrients and mental health symptoms

Given that our society’s food choices have moved so strongly toward ultra-processed products, we need to learn about the substantial scientific evidence proving that micronutrient intake influences mental health symptoms, especially irritability, explosive rage and unstable mood.

The scientific evidence base for this statement is now vast, though it is so rarely mentioned in the media that few in the public are familiar with it. A dozen studies from countries like Canada , Spain , Japan and Australia have shown that people who eat a healthy, whole foods diet have fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety than people who eat a poor diet (mostly ultra-processed products).

Correlational studies cannot prove that nutritional choices are the cause of mental health problems: for that we turn to some compelling prospective longitudinal studies in which people with no apparent mental health problems enter the study, are evaluated for their health and dietary patterns, and are then followed over time. Some of the results have been astonishing.

In a study of about 89,000 people in Japan with 10-15 years of followup, the suicide rate in those consuming a whole foods diet was half that of those eating less healthy diets, highlighting an important new direction not yet covered in current suicide prevention programs.

Here in Canada , similarly powerful findings show how children’s dietary patterns, as well as following other health guidelines on exercise and screen time, predicted which children aged 10 to 11 years would be referred for diagnosis of a mental disorder in the subsequent two years. It follows that nutrition education ought to be one of the first lines of treatment for children in this situation.

Irritability and unstable mood often characterize depression, so it’s relevant that multiple independent studies have found that teaching people with depression, who were consuming relatively poor diets, how to change to a whole foods Mediterranean-style diet resulted in significant improvements. A Mediterranean-style diet is typically high in whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes, seafood and unsaturated fats such as olive oil.

In one such study , about one-third of the people who changed to a whole foods diet in addition to their regular treatment found their depression to be in remission after 12 weeks.

The remission rate in the control group using regular treatment but no diet changes was fewer than one in 10. The whole foods diet group also reported a cost savings of about 20 per cent in their weekly food budget. This final point helps to dispel the myth that eating a diet of ultra-processed products is a way to save money.

Important evidence that irritability, explosive rage and unstable mood can be resolved with improved micronutrient intake comes from studies evaluating micronutrient supplements to treat mental health problems . Most public awareness is restricted to the ill-fated search for magic bullets: studies of a single nutrient at a time . That is a common way to think about causality (for problem X, you need medication Y), but that is not how our brains work.

To support brain metabolism, our brains require at least 30 micronutrients to ensure the production of neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine, as well as breaking down and removing metabolic byproducts. Many studies of multi-nutrient treatments have found improved mood regulation and reduced irritability and explosive rage, including in placebo-controlled randomized trials of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and mood dysregulation .

The evidence is clear: a well-nourished population is better able to withstand stress. Hidden brain hunger is one modifiable factor contributing to emotional outbursts, aggression and even the loss of civility in public discourse.

• Mental health
• Neuropsychology
• Mediterranean diet
• Public discourse
• Neuropsychiatry
• Food choices
• Ultra-processed food

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Science News Explores

Warning junk foods can harm a teen’s brain.

Though hard to resist, these foods pose risks to learning and mental health

Adolescent brains have a hard time resisting junk food. Researchers now are showing that high-fat and high-sugar diets — such as burgers, fries and sweets — can lead to disturbing changes in mental health.

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By Sharon Oosthoek

November 19, 2020 at 6:30 am

“You are what you eat.” When people say that, they mean a healthy diet can boost your health. But the opposite is also true. In fact, if you’re between the ages of 10 and 19, eating too much junk food can harm your body and your brain.

Junk food shapes adolescent brains in ways that impair their ability to think, learn and remember. It can also make it harder to control impulsive behaviors, says Amy Reichelt. It may even up a teen’s risk of depression and anxiety, she notes.

Reichelt is a brain and nutrition specialist at Canada’s Western University in London, Ontario. Adolescents are more sensitive than any other age group to foods with a lot of processed fat and sugar, she says. She is part of a group of scientists around the world who have been studying why.

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She and two other researchers at Western recently reviewed more than 100 studies (including their own) about how poor food choices can impact adolescent brains. They described what they learned in the May issue of  The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health .

One problem: Adolescent brains are not yet fully formed . And that actually leads to three problems in one, says Reichelt. First, adolescent brains are still developing the ability to assess risks and control actions. Second, teen brains get more pleasure than adult brains do from rewarding behaviors such as eating junk food. Third, adolescent brains can be more easily influenced by their environment. This can include any stress you’re feeling, any isolation or any drugs you may be taking. It can also be influenced by diet. Together, these all can combine to make junk food both hard to resist and extra bad for teen health.

Brains under construction

Let’s break that down, starting with preteen and teen behaviors. The brain region that tells us we shouldn’t eat chips all the time — and helps us resist that urge — is the last to mature. Called the prefrontal cortex, this region doesn’t fully develop until we are in our early 20s.

Brain imaging studies show that the prefrontal cortex turns on when we weigh risks and make decisions about how to act.

“Most of our complex brain functions happen in the prefrontal cortex,” says Reichelt. This includes complex math and reading. But she notes that it also includes “how to assess risky behavior.”

At the same time, teen brains get more buzz from rewards. Unlike the prefrontal cortex, the parts of the brain that make us feel good when we do something pleasurable — like eating tasty foods or being with friends — are fully developed by the teen years.

In fact, these regions are even more sensitive when we are young. That’s because of a natural chemical called dopamine (DOH-puh-meen). Dopamine is sometimes called the “feel good” chemical. It lifts our mood when we experience something rewarding. And it is especially active in adolescent brains.

As a neurotransmitter, it zips across the spaces between brain cells. Once it arrives at a new cell, dopamine binds to docking stations there. These molecules are known as receptors . When dopamine docks, those receptors relay the “feel good” signal from the last cell to this new one. That tells the brain that whatever it just experienced is worth getting more of. Adolescents have more dopamine receptors in the brain than do adults. So they get more good vibes from anything they find enjoyable.

The teen brain, thus, has two strikes against it when it comes to resisting junk food. “It has a heightened drive for rewards and reduced self-regulation,” says Reichelt.

That’s a big problem for adolescents because of the third issue: Growing brains can be more easily changed by eating high-fat, high-sugar foods. That’s what Reichelt and her team discovered in their studies of “teenage” mice.

Mouse brains on fat and sugar

Since mouse brains develop very much like our own, they can be used to understand how what we eat affects the human brain. In 2017, Reichelt was part of a team that fed adolescent mice high-fat foods to see how it affected their brains.

One group of mice ate a diet in which 63 percent of their calories came from fat. (That’s a lot of fat. It would be like eating bacon cheeseburgers and ice cream every day.) A second group ate a healthy diet.

As expected, mice eating high-fat food gained weight and put on body fat. But that was not all. These mice also performed worse on memory tests than did mice eating a normal diet.

The researchers tested the mice for what’s known as working memory. It’s the type that allows us to hold onto information long enough to use it. For example, working memory helps you remember which five things you need to buy at the store. Or what time you said you’d meet your friends. It’s also important for reasoning and decision-making. And it involves the prefrontal cortex — that’s the same brain area that helps make decisions.

Reichelt and her team used two different tests to gauge this working memory. In the first, they put the animals in a Y-shaped maze. Each mouse started in the center of the Y shape. From there they were free to explore two of the three arms of the maze. The third arm was blocked off.

Then the researchers opened up the maze’s third arm. Mice will naturally explore their environment and are drawn to new things. Given the chance, they should prefer to visit a new arm of the maze rather than one they’ve already explored. Or they would if they could remember which arms of the maze they had already visited.

Mice eating a healthy diet behaved as expected. They chose to explore the new arm of the maze. But those eating a high-fat diet did not prefer any one arm. The fact they explored all three at random seemed to show they could not remember which parts of the maze they had seen already.

The second test used a maze set up in a tank of murky water. The end of the maze is a platform just under the water’s surface. To get out of the water, a mouse must navigate to the platform by remembering landmarks. (The mice are scooped up to avoid drowning if they can’t find their way.)

Mice fed a healthy diet performed much better than did those eating high-fat chow. The fatter mice were just as good at swimming; they just did not find their way to the platform. This suggests they could not remember the landmarks.

Then the researchers looked at the animals’ brains. Here they found important differences in reelin, a chemical that helps brain cells chat with each other. Mice on high-fat chow had roughly 35 percent less reelin in their prefrontal cortex compared to mice on a healthy diet. The high-fat diet may have made the prefrontal cortex in these mice work less effectively.

People with brain diseases (such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder) often have lower levels of reelin, too, says Reichelt. “We can’t blame that on junk food in adolescence,” she says. “But it may be a contributing factor [to risk of disease].”

Reichelt found similar behavioral effects in adolescent rats that got daily access to a sugary drink. They showed less desire to explore new things than did rats not fed sugar.

Each rat had been placed in an enclosed square area with different objects in each corner. The rats could explore all four objects. The researchers then removed the rats from the pen for five minutes and swapped the locations of two objects. Then each rat returned to the enclosure. Animals not fed sugar spent more time exploring objects that were now in a new place. This suggests they could tell the objects had been moved. But the sugar-fed rats spent just as much time with the unmoved objects as they did with the changed ones. It seems they couldn’t tell what had been moved.

Human brains on junk food

Other researchers have found links between brain health and what teenage kids eat. Felice Jacka is one of them. She is an expert in nutrition and psychiatry at Deakin University in Victoria, Australia.

In one 2013 study , she and her team recruited more than 2,000 11- to 14-year-olds living in London, England. Each answered questions about what they ate and how they felt, mentally. The kids were asked how many servings of fruits and vegetables they ate each day. They also were asked how often they ate chips, candy, cookies, fried foods and sugary soft drinks. Then they were sorted into five groups, depending on how healthy their diets were.

Next, the adolescents answered 13 questions designed to figure out if they suffered from depression. The questions asked about their emotions and behavior over the previous two weeks. They were phrased as statements. The kids described if those statements were true, not true or sometimes true. Questions ranged from “I feel miserable or unhappy” and “I didn’t enjoy anything at all” to “I felt so tired, I just sat around and did nothing.”

The researchers scored each kid’s answers for signs of depression. Adolescents who ate the most junk food were nearly 50 percent more likely to show signs of depression.

Why might eating junk food be linked to depression? The data are unclear. Some research suggests that processed foods, such as lunch meat, increases inflammation in the body and the brain. Inflammation is one of the body’s responses to cellular injury and involves swelling. Other research has linked inflammation with depression. In one study , researchers found that people with depression had 30 percent more brain inflammation than did people who were not depressed.

Good fat, bad fat

The good news is that you can make food choices that support a healthy brain.

“The brain is the most fat-rich organ we have,” notes Alexandra Richardson. She is an expert in how diet affects the brain and a researcher at the University of Oxford in England. “And where does it get its fats? From what we put in our bodies.”

But not all fats are the same. Our brains need a type known as omega-3 fats. These helpful fats are found in fish, flaxseed and some oils. These fats help build the membrane that surrounds brain cells. Brain cells need membranes to hold them together and to communicate well with each other.

In one 2005 study , Richardson and her team showed improved mental health in children who took omega-3 supplements. The 117 children who took part were between the ages of five and 12. All had problems with attention, hyperactivity and impulsivity. They also struggled with reading and spelling.

Over three months, about half the children took omega-3 pills. The others took look-alike pills with no fats. Such inactive “treatments” are known as placebos (Pluh-SEE-bohs). Compared to kids who got the placebo, those who took omega-3 pills showed improved attention and ability to control their hyperactive, impulsive behavior. Their reading and spelling scores also went up. This may have reflected being able to pay closer attention in class.

Junk food may trigger attention-related problems because it does not contain the good fats needed to build healthy brain cells, says Richardson. But downing foods with more good fats can support healthy brains.

Exercise for your brain

Research shows exercise can be a good way to fend off damage from junk food, notes Cassandra Lowe. She works at Western University, where together with Reichelt she has studied kids’ brain and nutrition.

Two important things happen in the brain when we exercise. The first is that the brain’s reward system — the one that feels good when we do something we like — becomes less sensitive to food cues. While scientists don’t quite know why, the outcome is a good thing. “We don’t find high-calorie foods as rewarding,” explains Lowe.

Exercise also triggers the body to make a protein called BDNF. That stands for brain-derived neurotrophic (Neur-oh-TROH-fik) factor. BDNF helps brain cells grow. It also strengthens links between them.

This means exercise can boost strong connections between the prefrontal cortex and other brain regions. When that happens, the prefrontal cortex “can exert control better,” says Lowe. In other words, better connections help us weigh risks, make informed decisions on how to act, and curb our impulses.

What is the take-home message for kids? Many already know that junk food can make people fat and physically unhealthy, says Richardson. Most don’t often understand that it also can lead to unhealthy brains.

Processed and fried foods, such as cold cuts, store-bought baked goods, candy and chips don’t have many of the nutrients our bodies and brains need, Richardson says. Kids need to understand that they tend to be rich both in calories and in “concoctions of chemicals that do not support human health — physical or mental.”

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Food waste: a global problem that undermines healthy diets

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A lack of food, hunger and malnutrition affect every country in the world, the UN said on Tuesday, in an urgent appeal for action to reduce the amount of food that’s wasted.

 The call comes as the Food and Agriculture Organization ( FAO ) said that 17 per cent of all food available to consumers in 2019, ended up being thrown away.

When we don't waste food we aren't just saving it from the bin. Reducing your #foodwaste has so many more benefits 👇#FLWDay pic.twitter.com/JncHzBzSI3 FAO FAO

An additional 132 million people face food and nutrition insecurity today because of the COVID-19 pandemic, FAO said, ahead of the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste , on Wednesday 29 September.

Global problem

The problem of food waste is a global one and not limited to wealthy nations alone, said Nancy Aburto, Deputy Director of FAO’s Food and Nutrition Division Economic and Social Development Stream, speaking at a press conference in Geneva.

“Food insecurity, hunger and malnutrition are impacting every country in the world and no country is unaffected; 811 million people suffer hunger, two billion suffer micronutrient deficiencies – that’s vitamin and mineral deficiencies - and millions of children suffer stunting and wasting, deadly forms of under-nutrition.”

The FAO official warned that the high cost of “healthy” diets, meant that they were now “out of reach” of every region in the world, including Europe.

She also said that more countries needed to embrace innovation to reduce waste, such as new packaging that can prolong the shelf-life of many foods, while smartphone apps can bring consumers closer to producers, reducing the time between harvest and plate.

Repercussions of food waste

Reducing food loss and waste would improve agri-food systems and help towards achieving food security, food safety and food quality, all while delivering on nutritional outcomes.

According to FAO, it would also contribute “significantly to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, as well as pressure on land and water resources”.

With less than nine years left to reach Sustainable Development Goal ( SDG ) 12 on ensuring sustainable consumption, and target 12.3 to halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels, there is an urgent need to accelerate action, up to the 2030 deadline.

Takeaways for action:

• Reducing food loss and waste, strengthens the sustainability of food systems and improves planetary health.
• Increasing the efficiency of food systems and reducing food loss and waste, requires investment in innovation, technologies and infrastructure.
• Composting food waste is better than sending it to a landfill, but preventing waste in the first place, lessens its impact on the environment.
• Maximizing the positive impacts of reducing food loss and waste, requires good governance and human capital development.

However, this requires national and local authorities along with businesses and individuals to prioritize actions in this direction and contribute to restoring and improving agri-food systems.

Fruit and veg

And with just three months to go, during this International Year of Fruits and Vegetables , FAO has reminded that produce provides human nutrition and food security while working to achieve the SDGs.

“In the current health crisis we are facing around the world, promoting healthy diets to strengthen our immune systems is especially appropriate”, FAO chief QU Dongyu said , kicking off the year last December.

He also noted that  food loss and waste  in the fruits and vegetables

sector remain a problem with considerable consequences, pointing out that “innovative technologies and approaches are of critical importance”, as they can help maintain safety and quality, “increasing the shelf life of fresh produce items and preserving their high nutritional value”.

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Junk food and your health

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• 'Junk food' is food that contains high levels of fats, salt or sugar, and lacks nutrients such as fibre, vitamins and minerals.
• Reading nutritional information labels and following the Health Star Ratings system can help you make healthy food choices.
• Understanding the nutritional value of the food you eat and being aware of advertising 'tricks' can also help you reduce your junk food intake.
• Eating junk food, and having sweet drinks, can lead to short- and long-term health complications, including weight gain, diabetes and heart problems.

What is junk food?

'Junk foods' are foods that lack nutrients, vitamins and minerals , and are high in kilojoules (energy), salts , sugars , or fats . Junk food is so called because it doesn't play a role in healthy eating, especially if you eat too much of it. Junk food is also known as 'discretionary food' or 'optional food'.

Some examples of junk food include:

• cakes and biscuits
• fast foods (such as hot chips, burgers and pizzas)
• chocolate and sweets
• processed meat (such as bacon)
• snacks (such as chips)
• sugary drinks (such as sports, energy and soft drinks)
• alcoholic drinks

If your diet is high in fats, salt and sugar and you are not receiving essential nutrients , your risk of obesity and other chronic (long-term) diseases may increase.

These diseases include:

• cardiovascular disease
• type 2 diabetes
• non-alcoholic fatty liver disease
• some cancers

How do I know if a food product is 'junk food'?

While finding healthy alternatives to junk food can sometimes be difficult, the Health Star Rating system is a convenient tool to help you know how healthy a product is. It's a quick and easy way to compare similar packaged foods.

The Health Star Rating system rates packaged foods between half a star and 5 stars, based on how healthy they are. These ratings are found on the front of packaged items. However, it is important to note that this system is very general, and the nutritional value of some products may not be accurately expressed by the rating they receive.

Remember also that the Health Star Rating system is designed only for packaged products sold in shops, so it won't include some healthy foods — including fresh unpackaged food such as fruit and vegetables.

How do I make healthy food choices?

It's important to understand the nutritional value of the food you are buying. You can do this by reading the nutrition panel found on the back of all packaged items in Australia.

Food labels can tell you things like the amount of energy , protein , fat , carbohydrates , sugars, fibre and sodium (salt) in each product, as well as the recommended serving size.

Understanding health claims

When checking a product for its nutritional value, make sure you look at the health claims such as 'low in fat' or 'sugar free', as these can be misleading. When a product is advertised as 'light' or 'lite', this may refer only to the product's colour or flavour. This means that the product may still be 'full-fat' — be sure to read the nutrition information panel at the back of the package for the actual fat content.

Another common claim is that a product is 'sugar-free' or has 'no added sugar'. In truth, this means that a product has no added sucrose or table sugar, but it may still contain other types of sugar. The product may also contain salt or fat and may be high in kilojoules, so even sugar free products can be junk foods.

Note also that products known as 'health foods' such as some fruit juices and muesli bars can actually be junk food if they contain high levels of sugar, salt or fat. Check a product's Health Star Rating for a better guide to how healthy the product is. Keep in mind that this rating system is limited in accuracy, but may be a better guide than advertised claims.

Can I include a small amount of junk food in a healthy diet?

Yes, in line with the Australian Dietary Guidelines , a small amount of junk or discretionary food can be included in a healthy, balanced diet. This means you should only have junk food occasionally and in small amounts. In general, most Australians eat too much junk food and should work on eating less of it, less often.

It is important to balance your junk food intake with increased exercise to help burn off extra energy. This will help you avoid gaining excessive weight.

When thinking about how much junk food you eat, remember that everybody is different — if you are shorter or smaller than average, or you do less exercise than the average person, you will also need to eat less than the average person. If you are trying to lose weight, try and keep the amount of junk food you eat to a minimum.

Check the Australian Dietary Guidelines to help you decide if you need to improve your diet, and to guide your food and drink intake.

How can I reduce the amount of junk food I eat?

While it can be challenging to reduce the amount of junk food you eat, you don't have to give up on all your favourite foods.

Here are some tips on how to create healthy eating habits :

• Plan your meals and snacks ahead of time so you decide what you eat based on nutrition, not based on what is left in your pantry. Planning ahead also helps you keep to a budget and makes shopping easier.
• Choose wholefood options such as wholemeal and wholegrain carbohydrates like pasta, bread and flour.
• Choose fresh fruit for dessert instead of junk food to keep away from added salt, sugar and saturated fat.
• Check your food's nutritional value using the nutritional information panel on the back of the packet.
• Watch out for advertising 'tricks', including claims that a product has 'no added sugar', since it can still be high in kilojoules, salt or fat. A product can claim to be 'reduced in fat' as long as it has less fat than an earlier version of the product — but it may still be high in fat.
• Use the Health Star Rating system to compare similar packaged items and choose the healthiest one.

NEED TO LOSE WEIGHT? — Use the BMI Calculator to find out if your weight and waist size are in a healthy range.

Why is junk food so appealing?

While you may feel that you enjoy junk food just because it tastes so good, there is a scientific explanation for why you want to have more of it. The brain naturally encourages you to seek experiences that you find pleasurable, including eating tasty food. This encouragement from the brain is known as the 'reward' system.

When a person eats tasty food (including junk food) the reward circuit in the brain is switched on. This releases a brain chemical called dopamine . The chemical rush floods the brain with pleasure and so the brain creates more receptors for dopamine in response. In the same way that people with a drug or alcohol addiction require a bigger dose over time, you crave more junk food the more you eat it.

Does eating junk food cause health complications?

Eating too much junk food can have a negative effect on your general health and wellbeing and can also reduce your ability to be active.

Short-term effects of junk foods

As well as causing you to gain weight, the other short-term effects of eating junk food include:

• increased stress levels
• fatigue and decreased energy levels
• difficulty sleeping
• concentration difficulties
• feeling down
• tooth decay

Long-term effects of junk foods

In the long-term, eating junk food can lead to:

• heart-related problems (such as cardiovascular disease , high blood pressure and cholesterol )
• overweight and obesity
• osteoporosis
• certain cancers
• eating disorders

These complications are all associated with a diet high in sugar, salt, trans- and saturated fats and with a lack of essential nutrients like fibre, vitamins and minerals.

ARE YOU AT RISK? — Are you at risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease or kidney disease? Use the Risk Checker to find out.

Is it more expensive to eat healthily?

Eating healthily doesn't have to be expensive, and can even save you money if you cut down on junk food purchases.

Here are some tips to help you eat healthily on a budget:

• Plan ahead and make a list you can stick to in the supermarket.
• Shop smart — buy what's in season and what's on special.
• Use the fresh fruit and vegetables you already have at home first, before buying more.
• Meal preparation means you can buy and cook in bulk, which will save you both time and money.
• Only buy what you need.

Resources and support

For more information and support, you can visit the following websites:

• Heart Foundation provides information on healthy eating to protect your heart
• Nutrition Australia aims to 'inspire healthy eating' through information, education and consultation services.
• Parents' Voice are parents interested in improving the food and physical activity of Australian children
• Rethink Sugary Drink highlight the amount of sugar in soft drinks
• Dietitians Australia teaches how diet and nutrition can improve your health and wellbeing — Call on 1800 812 942.
• The George Institute's FOODSWITCH website and app can help you find out what's in the packaged food you're looking to buy, as well as help you make healthier food choices.

Call healthdirect on 1800 022 222 at any time to speak to a registered nurse (known as NURSE-ON-CALL in Victoria) for more information and advice.

Learn more here about the development and quality assurance of healthdirect content .

Last reviewed: June 2023

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The Hidden Dangers of Fast and Processed Food *

The fundamental concern as we look to reform health in America is the known reality that most chronic diseases that afflict Americans are predominantly lifestyle induced; and the belief is that the vast majority of heart attacks and strokes could be prevented if people were willing to adopt healthy lifestyle behaviors. In addition, healthy lifestyles would impact a significant number of cancers which are also believed to be related to lifestyle exposures, especially to obesity, cigarettes, and other toxins.

Over the past 50 years, the health of Americans has gotten worse, and now 71% of Americans are overweight or obese—not 66%, which was reported 5 years ago. 1 That means a staggering 100 million people in America are obese. Today, eating processed foods and fast foods may kill more people prematurely than cigarette smoking. 2

Authorities determined the 71% figure by classifying people with a body mass index (BMI) over 25 kg/m 2 as overweight or obese. Yet in long-lived societies such as in the “Blue Zones” (Ikaria, Greece; Sardinia, Italy; Okinawa, Japan; the Nicoya Peninsula of Costa Rica; and Loma, Linda California) and wherever we find groups of centenarians, we observe a healthy BMI below 23 kg/m 2 , not 25 kg/m 2 . If we use above 23 kg/m 2 as the demarcation for overweight or obesity, then we find that 88% of Americans are overweight. And out of the approximately 10% that are of normal weight, the majority of those so-called “normal weight individuals” are either cigarette smokers, or suffer from alcoholism, drug addiction or dependency, autoimmune disease, occult cancers, inflammatory disorders, autoimmune conditions, digestive disorders, irritable bowel syndrome, and other illnesses that lower their body weight. Therefore, perhaps that only about 5% of the American population is at a normal weight as a result of eating healthy and living a healthy life. A recent study documented that only 2.7% of Americans adopt a relatively healthy lifestyle by combining exercise with healthy eating. 3 The Standard American Diet (SAD) is clearly not a healthy diet.

I use the term “Fast Food Genocide” because most don’t understand the depth and breadth of the harm as a large segment of our society eats a diet worse than the dangerous SAD. Many people recognize that junk food, fast food, processed food, white flour, sugar, maple syrup, honey, agave nectar, and all the junk people are eating contribute to in obesity, diabetes, heart attacks, strokes, dementia and cancer, but many don’t realize the strong causative role an unhealthy diet may have in mental illness. Currently, 1 in 5 Americans suffers from a psychiatric disorder. And many people don’t realize the harm that processed foods have on Americans living in urban areas where they don’t have easy access to whole, fresh foods.

These unfortunate folks live in what we call “food deserts,” with reduced availability to fresh fruits and vegetables. Because of the limited access to supermarkets, they eat more unhealthy fast and processed foods and end up having 7 times the risk of early-life stroke (before age 45), putting people in nursing homes in their 30s, 40s, and 50s. 4 - 7

The vulnerable poor in these areas also have double the risk of heart attack, double the risk of diabetes, and 4 times the risk of renal failure 8 - 10 ; Unfortunately, the decrease in life span due to food inequality is shocking but rarely discussed. A substantial proportion of people in these urban environments are overweight, prediabetic, or fully diabetic. Researchers determined that compared with other areas in America with easy access to supermarket food, that the YPLL (Years of Potential Life Lost) for an overweight diabetic living in a zone classified as a food desert was a shocking 45 years! 11 , 12

A link may even exist between fast food, processed food, commercial baked goods, and sweets and destruction of brain cell and a lowering of intelligence. Candy and sweetened baked goods may even stimulate the brain in an addictive fashion, which can lead to more serious illnesses.

The nutritional fundamentals accepted by the World Health Organization and most nutritional authorities today include vegetables, beans, nuts, seeds, and fruit as healthy foods; and salt, saturated fat, and excess sugar as disease causing. Excessive amounts of animal products may lead to premature aging, increased risk of chronic disease and higher all-cause mortality. Multiple studies have been published on hundreds of thousands of people, followed for decades showing that the objective endpoint of death is increased with higher amounts of animal product consumption. 13 - 17 Furthermore, refined carbohydrates may not just lead to being overweight and diabetic but also contribute to dementia, mental illness, and cancer. 18 - 21 There is considerable evidence today that heart disease is not only promoted by saturated fat and increased animal products but also by refined carbohydrates, including white rice, white bread, sugar, honey, maple syrup, and agave nectar. 22 - 25

Research has shown that excess calories shorten lifespan, whereas moderate caloric restriction slows the aging process and protects the body and brain. Americans consume more calories than any other population; and they consume foods, many of which have minimal or no nutritional value (soda and alcohol as examples). So let’s consider the individual who is consuming 50 excess calories per day. What will be the short- and long-term result? Fifty excess calories per day, over and above your basic metabolic needs, over a 10-year period, adds about 50 pounds of extra body weight. The excess weight increases the risk of multiple chronic illnesses, cancers, and also takes many years of life away from the individual simply as a result of consuming only 50 calories a day too many.

Conversely, if an individual consumed 50 calories a day less that their metabolic requirements what would happen then? Would he or she become too thin, anorexic, and unhealthy? Would their bones fall apart? Obviously not! When you moderately caloric-restrict, even a small amount such as 50 to 100 calories a day, weight remains about the same, the person is slim, not too thin, and healthy. He or she will have a lower body fat percentage, and the skeletal mass, bones, and muscle mass are strong. In this scenario, the metabolic rate would slow down accordingly. The respiratory quotient, (the number of calories lost through respiration) would decrease, the body temperature would lower, and thyroid function would decrease slightly, all lowering the metabolic rate, which overall may result in a slowing of the aging process. The secret to a long life and freedom from chronic disease may be simply to moderately reduce calories in order to slow down our metabolic rate. The only behavior proven scientifically to dramatically increase life span in every species of animals, including primates, is to lower caloric intake while maintaining an environment of micronutrient adequacy, assuring that we have exposure to every micronutrient humans need. The American diet is also deficient in antioxidants and phytochemicals that are needed for normal immune function, for maximizing brain health, protecting against dementia, chronic illness, cancer, and premature aging.

A nutritarian diet is designed to establish excellent micronutrient intake without excess calories . A nutritarian diet is designed to help prolong human life span, decrease the risk of cancer, and keep the brain functioning well for many years. This principle is represented by the equation I use: H = N /C, which means your healthy life expectancy (H) is proportional to the micronutrient (N) per calorie intake (C) over your life span. This means that we are encouraged to seek out foods that are rich in nutrients. We should try to limit or exclude empty-calorie foods and drinks. We should also limit or avoid calorically dense foods, and not eat for recreation or when we are not hungry.

A nutritarian diet is rich in phytochemicals and antioxidants. It is a vegetable-based, utilizing a wide assortment of colorful vegetables, root vegetables, green vegetables, peas, beans, mushrooms, onions, nuts, seeds, and some intact whole grains. While the standard American diet and most traditional diets are grain-based and lack sufficient exposure to the broad spectrum of antioxidants and phytochemicals (with their anticancer effects), it is important to note that not all plant-based diets are equally cancer-protective. As an example, a rice-heavy, macrobiotic diet limits phytochemical diversity, and brown rice produced in this country is contaminated with arsenic, extensively documented by Consumer Reports and white rice is refined, high glycemic food, and therefore not a healthy starch.

In comparison, the SAD is almost the opposite of a nutritarian diet. Over 55% of the SAD’s calories are processed foods, and about 33% of calories come from animal products. If we are looking at the amount of fresh produce (fruits and vegetables) consumed in America, the food consumption data reports about 10%; but in actuality, it is less than 5%, because they include French fries and ketchup in the definition of “produce!” The point here is that processed foods such as bread, pasta, salad oil, mayonnaise, doughnuts, cookies, rice cakes, breakfast bars, chips, soda, candy, and popcorn do not contain a significant micronutrient benefit. A piece of chicken is like a bagel, because they are both rich sources of macronutrients (calories), but neither one contains the necessary amounts of micronutrients, especially the antioxidants and phytochemicals only found in plants.

The high glycemic white flour products with added sweetening agents, flood the bloodstream with glucose without fiber, nutrients, or phytochemicals; and these baked goods are also high in acrylamides and advanced glycation end-products, further increasing the glycoproteins in our tissues. The resulting spike in glucose leads to abnormally high amounts of insulin, which will also promote angiogenesis, which fuels the growth of fat cells, increases cellular replication and tumor growth. The liberal amount of animal protein (including chicken which many incorrectly believe is the more healthy meat) consumed by most Americans promotes excessive insulin-like growth factor–1 (IGF-1), making a synergistic “sandwich” of insulin and IGF-1, which may accelerate aging of the brain, interfere with cellular detoxification and repair, and promote cancer. 26 The SAD has created a nutritional disaster and a significant health crisis that will not be solved by governmental “health care reform.”

Now when we think about “fast food” we’re not just referring to the food in fast food restaurants. Fast foods include chips, soda, cookies, candy, breakfast cereals, bars, French fries, burgers, pizza, white flour baked goods, and all other high-calorie, low-nutrient foods that people often eat multiple times per day. These are processed foods and for many, are the primary source of calories. These fast foods have certain characteristics: They can be accessed easily and quickly; they don’t need to be prepared; they come out of a bag or box ready to go right into your mouth. You can eat them rapidly and they’re absorbed very quickly into the bloodstream. These fast foods typically contain multiple chemicals and synthetic ingredients. They are calorically dense, highly flavored, and nutritionally barren. Fast foods typically contain extra corn syrup, sugar, artificial sweeteners, salt, coloring agents, and other potentially disease promoting chemicals.

When calories flood the bloodstream rapidly they have dramatic biological effects. Let’s compare 200 calories of white bread to 200 calories of beans. The white bread would be metabolized into simple sugars (glucose) which enters the bloodstream in 5 to 10 minutes. This requires a rapid increase in insulin; and the rapid insulin response will remain for hours. On the other hand, the carbohydrates from beans will take much more time to be digested and, as a result these calories enter the bloodstream slowly. Essentially, the calories will trickle in over hours. When eating beans, a small amount of glucose enters the blood each minute and therefore you won’t need much of an insulin response to deal with this amount of sugar. As mentioned above, the buildup of advanced glycation end products (AGEs) accelerates aging and chronic disease. 27 , 28 When a diabetic suffers from kidney failure, blindness, or a leg amputation, a major causative factor is the buildup of AGEs in the tissues. Interestingly, these same glycated end-products and glycoproteins build up in the tissues of people who are not diabetic but who continually expose themselves to excess sugar and white flour products.

Next, it is important to understand that oils are also processed foods. When consumed, oil enters the bloodstream rapidly similar to high glycemic carbohydrates. Anything cooked in oil should be considered a fast food. Beans, nuts, and seeds are whole foods whose calories are absorbed gradually over hours. In contrast, the calories from oil are absorbed rapidly, and are largely empty calories (with insignificant micronutrients and no fiber)—a combination that leads to obesity, disease, and premature aging.

If I set up a buffet dinner and I asked all the guests to form 2 lines and then gave everyone on the right side a tablespoon of olive oil, and each of those on the left side an apple to consume while they were waiting in line, those who ate the 65-calorie apple will generally eat 65 less calories from the buffet. But those who had the 120-calorie tablespoon of oil will not usually consume 120 calories less. The oil contains neither fiber, nor micronutrients and contains nothing to decrease the appestat. A matter of fact, if you put oil on food, it may actually increase one’s appetite. Not only will these individuals not eat fewer calories—they will eat even more than the 120 calories from the oil. 29 When added or mixed into food, oil drives overeating behavior.

Nutrients and fiber are needed to control the appestat, so you consume a healthy amount of calories. My experience has demonstrated with thousands of patients, the more nutrient and fiber dense your diet becomes the lower your drive to overeat. 30 This is extremely important, because even a moderate amount of extra fat on the body induces more rapid aging and increases the risk of diabetes, heart disease and cancer. A mild degree of caloric restriction becomes comfortable and achievable when the diet is high in micronutrients and fiber. When you have enough micronutrients and fiber in your diet, you don’t feel driven to overeat. But when you don’t have enough micronutrients and fiber in your diet, you become a food-craving, overeating machine.

Even worse is what happens when you eat food fried in oil because fried food may create carcinogenic and mutagenic aldehydes. 31 Food that is fried such as in a fast food restaurant is usually cooked in oil that has been heated and used multiple times. One serving of French fries or fried chicken that is cooked in a fast food restaurant has 100 times the level of aldehydes designated as safe by the World Health Organization. Even the fumes are so toxic they increase the risk of cancer. People working in restaurants that fry the food, or those working in a movie theater making popcorn, have a heighted risk of lung and other cancers, even if they don’t eat any of the fried foods. 32

The explosion of fast food restaurants has significantly increased the intake of fried foods, and people are now eating 1000 times the amount of soybean oil compared with the early 1900s. 33 Humans never ate 400 calories of oil a day the way people do in America, especially in the Southern states—which are known for the highest stroke and heart attack rates in the world. 34 When you use nuts and seeds as your source of fat as opposed to oil, we see the opposite effect.

The Physician’s Health Study, the Nurses’ Health Study, Iowa Women’s Health Study, the Adventist Health Study—any study with large numbers of people followed for decades—demonstrates the relationship between nut and seed consumption and longer life span. We always have to give more credence to clinical research studies that involve large numbers of people followed over decades using objective endpoints such as mortality. When you do that, you find that people who consume nuts and seeds regularly have lower cancer rates, lower cardiovascular death rates, lower sudden cardiac death, less irregular heartbeats, and an increase in life span.

A 2015 meta-analysis that included over 44 000 deaths demonstrated an almost 40% decrease in cardiovascular mortality for people eating nuts and seeds regularly (one serving a day). The European PreviMed study, which randomized 7216 individuals to nuts or olive oil as part of a Mediterranean diet showed a 39% decrease in all-cause mortality in the nut eaters. 35

When we look at the health implications of animal protein we should compare this type of nutrition with plant-based proteins, especially when an individual has cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, or even cancer. When your protein comes from beans, nuts, seeds, and greens, the body more gradually assimilates a complete array of amino acids to make functional proteins and hormones, keeping IGF-1 production much lower. Adequate amounts of plant protein keep IGF-1 in that moderate range, between 100 and 175, which is where it should be. The average American’s IGF-1 level is around 225, which is a level which has been linked to cancer promotion. When we eat a variety of plants, we get a full balance of amino acids, which slowly enter the blood—and we also digest some of the bacteria in the digestive track and some of the cells that slough off of the villi endothelium, enabling the utilization of partially incomplete plant proteins, now made complete. Conversely, when you eat large portions of meat, eggs, or cheese, the amino acid mix enters the bloodstream faster and because it is already biologically complete, it stimulates excessive amounts of IGF-1, again increasing the risk of cancer. 36 - 43

The average American consumes 10 to 20 ounces a day of animal products, whereas the safe level of consumption is likely less than 10 ounces per week . My estimate of 10% of calories as an upper limit of safe consumption is for a person with favorable genetics and is still likely more animal products than ideal for the nonelderly adults. It may be the case that under 5% of calories from animal products would be more ideal for life span and for facilitating disease reversal. Of course, any diet designed to optimize health should include a broad array of colorful plants with phytochemicals and antioxidants, which have been shown to increase life span and prevent cancer.

The animal products served at fast food restaurants are making the health of the population much worse, creating dangerous carcinogens from the food being grilled, barbecued, and fried at high temperatures. The World Health Organization has classified processed meats (hot dogs, sausage, bacon, and lunch meats) a class 1 carcinogen. AGEs are also highest in barbecued and fried animal products which also contain cancer-causing chemicals such as heterocyclic amines, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and lipid peroxidases, which are mutagenic.

There are 2 phases of the digestive cycle: the anabolic phase, when you are eating and digesting, and the catabolic phase, when digestion has ceased. When you are eating and digesting food, the body turns those calories into stored glycogen, increasing fat storage and the storage of waste. During this phase of the digestive cycle, growth hormones and fat storage hormones are activated.

When your body is finished digesting, you enter the catabolic phase, where the stored glycogen and fat are utilized for energy. This is the phase when your body can most effectively detoxify and enhance cellular repair. It is the time when the liver and kidneys work together to remove aldehydes, AGEs, and other toxic metabolites. Repair and healing is enhanced during the catabolic phase when you are not eating food.

Most Americans have made their bodies so toxic, that when they enter the catabolic phase of the digestive cycle, they feel uncomfortable. That means they feel fatigue, headache, stomach cramping or fluttering, anxiety, or other uncomfortable symptoms when they stop digesting food and the body starts to mobilize waste and repair the damage. They typically interpret these symptoms as hunger or low blood sugar, because they feel better if they eat again—even though there is no biological need for calories at this time; and so they just get fatter and sicker. Every addiction has a “high” during the caloric rush and a “low” during withdrawal and repair from the disease-causing diet and resultant metabolic wastes and toxins that accrue from it. The American diet results in withdrawal symptoms and discomfort which promotes overeating and too-frequent eating. The lower the quality of the food consumed, the more discomfort felt when not eating and digesting, which makes it very difficult to maintain a healthy body weight.

If you’re healthy and eating nutritious food, you feel nothing when you enter the catabolic phase, with no desire to eat again until glycogen stores are nearly exhausted. True hunger is a mild sensation felt in the throat and base of the neck. True hunger heightens taste sensitivity too, making eating more pleasurable. True hunger directs when you should eat and therefore it’s more difficult to become overweight if you pay attention to the signs your body sends to your brain. Being overweight requires eating outside of the demands of true hunger, either recreationally or because of withdrawal symptoms from improper eating, stimulating the overconsumption of calories.

Enhanced detoxification—reduction of metabolic waste, aldehydes, and AGEs—occurs most effectively in the catabolic phase. That means the longer you live in the catabolic phase of the digestive cycle, the longer you live. If you finish dinner earlier or have a lighter dinner, and you have a 13-hour window between the end of dinner and the start of breakfast, you are going to live longer. A recent study had women with breast cancer followed for 10 years and found that those who finished dinner earlier and had a 13-hour window before the start of breakfast had a 26% reduction in the risk of death or recurrence from breast cancer. 44 , 45 The increased nighttime window was also linked to improved glycemic control and a lower HbA1c (glycated hemoglobin). They had no better diet, no different number of calories, no better food; they just finished dinner earlier.

The goal for excellent health is to eat as infrequently as possible. Many people believe just the opposite and eat frequent small meals that increase endothelial dysfunction leading to an increased risk for arteriosclerosis and cardiovascular disease. In addition, all the fad diets encourage people to make the wrong choices about what and when to eat. Many suggest the use of frequent high-protein meals so as not to feel the effects of normal detoxification. When the digestive track is continually busy, it results in accelerated aging.

Processed and fast foods are also high in salt. The fast and processed food manufacturers don’t just put salt on the French fries and on the meat, they also put salt in the French fry batter and inside the chopped meat. They also include high fructose corn syrup in most foods. The added fat, sugar, and salt create a taste that makes people crave these foods, a sensation that many describe as an addiction. Both sugar and salt intake increase stroke risk, especially when consumed daily for years. Additionally, what is generally not appreciated is that the regular consumption of artificially sweetened soda creates more of a stroke risk. 46 High salt does not merely raise blood pressure; it also causes microvascular hemorrhaging, which damages the interior walls of the blood vessels in the brain and increases permeability and the propensity for hemorrhagic stroke. 47 , 48

Over the past 30 years, we’ve also seen an explosion of diabetes in Japan, Korea, and China, occurring at a lower body weight than we typically see in America, likely because the cumulative effects of eating more fast food, more oil and sugar, along with all of the white rice (a refined, high glycemic food), which they already had in their diet.

We know that people have the power to change when significant effort and attention is directed to the problems at hand. With good information, emotional support, increased food availability and food preparation instruction, we have found people enthused and willing to work together for change. They don’t have to be convinced of the tragic dangers of fast food; they see the obesity, diabetes, leg amputations, strokes, and blindness all around them. But if people don’t have good information, then they don’t have a choice. If they don’t have access to healthy, affordable food, and they don’t know how to make it taste good, then they are not given a chance to change.

The goal for physicians and other health care professionals is to work to transform America’s inner cities into zones of nutritional excellence. Our nation’s pride and heritage are based on the equal opportunity to achieve the American dream of prosperity and happiness. This critical information needs to be spread and put into action by community activists, teachers, educators, celebrities, health professionals, athletes, and politicians. The more people who know the critical importance of eating healthfully, and the more they take a stand, the greater the effect will be on transforming the health of all in America. By working together, we can save millions of lives.

Acknowledgments

This work was presented at Lifestyle Medicine 2017, October 22-25; Tucson, AZ.

Authors’ Note: The opinions presented in this article are those of the author and may not represent those of the Guest Editor, Editor, or the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding: The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Ethical Approval: Not applicable, because this article does not contain anystudies with human or animal subjects.

Informed Consent: Not applicable, because this article does not contain anystudies with human or animal subjects.

Trial Registration: Not applicable, because this article does not contain anyclinical trials.

Home — Essay Samples — Nursing & Health — Junk Food — People Should Eat Less Junk Food

People Should Eat Less Junk Food

• Categories: Dieting Junk Food

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Words: 475 |

Published: Jan 31, 2024

Words: 475 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Table of contents

Physical health, mental well-being, overall quality of life, counterargument and refutation.

• American Journal of Clinical Nutrition - https://academic.oup.com/ajcn
• Nutritional Neuroscience - https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/iunu20/current
• World Health Organization - https://www.who.int
• National Institute on Drug Abuse - https://www.drugabuse.gov

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Junk Food Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on junk food.

The term ‘junk food’ itself says a lot about this food. It indicates how it is harmful to our health. Furthermore, junk foods are basically trash which harms our bodies in different ways. They have high levels of cholesterol, sugar, calories and more. We see how nowadays, the younger generation is getting indulging in more and more junk food. This is putting their lives in danger and giving them an unhealthy lifestyle .

Furthermore, junk food does not have a single benefit. It only has ill-effects as they do not contain nutritional value . Parents must teach their kids about the ill-effects of junk food. Moreover, they must provide them with healthy meals at home so they won’t have to go out to eat fast food.

Rising Popularity of Junk Food

We all know that the fast-food industry is increasing by leaps and bounds these days. People these days are more attracted to junk food because it is appealing. Why is that? People are using manipulative ways to entice people to buy their fast food.

Moreover, junk food is prepared very easily. It takes minimum time to prepare it as it does not have any nutritious ingredients. We see how junk food does not have any special ingredients. It just contains common harmful ones in excess like oil, sugar, and more.

Furthermore, junk food is very reasonable. As it does not require any healthy material, it is not that costly. We see how it is available at very reasonable pricing. It is one of the main reasons why people buy it frequently.

Most importantly, junk food has become very accessible now, more than ever. With the onset of numerous food delivery apps, you can now get junk food with a single click. You have a plethora of options now which will deliver all sorts of junk food right at your doorstep.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Ill-effects of Junk Food

The major characteristic of junk food is that it spikes the energy levels instantly. It does not really benefit your body, just satisfies your taste buds. If we intake junk food regularly, we get moody more often.

Moreover, regular consumption of junk food causes a drop in the concentration levels of a person. This is why we see how kids these days are easily distracted. Moreover, you may also notice how obesity becoming common these days. It is a very chronic disease which is only enhanced by eating junk food.

Further, you may also notice how junk food increases blood pressure and sugar. A person gets more prone to heart diseases due to the fattening products used in it. Similarly, junk food is not easy to digest. This may gradually damage your brain function because it creates a lack of oxygen levels.

Junk food does not only damage the heart but the liver as well. It causes diabetes amongst people from an early age. Moreover, the lack of fibers in junk food equals to a damaged digestive system. This may cause constipation as well. Therefore, we see how junk food companies are fooling people. They are deceiving them into consuming their junk food to increase their sales. Thus, we need to realize this fact as soon as possible. Try to replace junk food with healthy food. Prepare your meals at home instead of ordering outside.

FAQ on Junk Food Essay

Q.1 Why is junk food getting popular?

A.1 Junk food is getting popular because it is easily accessible now. It is appealing and fast food companies are fooling the public for increasing their sales.

Q.2 State the ill-effects of junk food.

A.2 Junk food causes a lot of chronic diseases like diabetes, cholesterol, heart diseases. It drops your concentration level and messes with your digestive system.

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2 Minute Speech On Health Hazards Of Junk Food In English

Good morning everyone present here, today I am going to give a speech on health hazards of junk food. Because every ingredient in junk food is unnecessary, harmful, and wasteful, which is why it is called junk food. These ingredients include oil, trans fats rather than healthy omega fats, sugar, fats, and calories, as well as little to no protein and fiber. The endorsement is quite appealing even with all the flaws. On the streets, junk food, primarily fast food, is widely accessible. Due to the affordable price and the fact that it is very delicious, even children can purchase it without any problems.

We discover the nutrients that must be consumed for a healthy body, and the food pyramid makes it abundantly evident that we should consume fewer of all the nutrients that are highly concentrated in fast food. Yet these deceptive commercials for hamburgers, biryanis, pizzas, spaghetti, chips, and noodles continue to deceive us. The issue with all of this is not that it is accessible or readily available; rather, it is how frequently people choose to eat such unhealthy food rather than good, prepared, and fine meals.

We hold the power to either ruin or preserve our health, giving us the opportunity to live a long and healthy life. Let’s all make this decision now rather than later to avoid regretting it later in life when we develop diabetes, obesity, depression, heart disease, or high cholesterol. The moment to make healthy decisions has come, therefore let’s make a commitment to do so by avoiding items that are bad for our bodies and health. Thank you. 

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Who’d Want to Give a Commencement Speech Anymore?

Executive communications experts say the gig is becoming a harder sell for business leaders.

By Sarah Kessler ,  Lauren Hirsch and Michael J. de la Merced

Tim Cook has delivered at least seven commencement addresses since becoming the chief executive of Apple. The superstar Taylor Swift, whose concerts have been credited with lifting local economies, addressed New York University’s graduation ceremony in 2022. Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Jamie Dimon — they’ve all given graduation speeches more than once.

They’re obviously not doing it for the money (and typically there isn’t any). Instead, speakers have long seen graduation ceremonies as offering something increasingly rare: a stage where a large group of people gather to hear speakers impart wisdom, advice or whatever else they want to talk about.

The appeal of being a commencement speaker, however, seems to be waning.

Just three Fortune 50 chief executives appear to be commencement speakers this year, as colleges have faced campus protests over the war in Gaza, student arrests and wealthy alumni threatening to break ties with their alma maters over antisemitism.

“The idea of C.E.O.s going out aggressively and speaking anywhere near this environment on campuses, it just doesn’t seem like the moment for them to be doing that,” said David Murray, the executive director of the Professional Speechwriters Association.

C.E.O.s are tired of talking. At a recent meeting of executive speechwriters, Murray said one takeaway stood out. As one presenter put it, “ Less is more, in ’24.”

Murray highlighted the sentiment in the Professional Speechwriters Association’s May newsletter: “Folks will increasingly keep their leaders out of the spotlight,” he wrote, describing the current moment as one in which “even formerly anodyne messages encouraging employees to vote” sound partisan to some.

That approach marks a drastic evolution from when executives made statements in droves after the death of a Black man, George Floyd, in police custody in 2020. “They didn’t get rewarded for it,” Murray said. “They got called woke. One group said they didn’t go far enough, one group said they went too far, and now they’re definitely in a phase of, ‘We comment on things that absolutely have essential bearing on our company and our business.’”

Campuses reflect an era of division. Before the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, the war in Gaza and the campus protests that followed, the City University of New York School of Law announced that it would have no commencement speaker . The school had faced a backlash when speakers at previous commencements focused on their support for Palestinians. After protests on campus related to the war, and the ensuing controversy over how school administrations handled them, Columbia University announced that it would cancel its main commencement ceremony altogether . And across the country, as many ceremonies carried on without disruption, several have been interrupted by protests and walkouts , sometimes targeted at the school’s choice of speaker .

Michael Franklin, the executive director of the industry association Speechwriters of Color, said speechwriters are increasingly preparing for disruption. “A new part of the package this year, in addition to the remarks that they would deliver, is also having some alternative transition remarks in the event of a disruption,” he said.

Some executives prefer chats to speeches. The chief executive of Microsoft, Satya Nadella, accepted an honorary Ph.D. at Georgia Tech this year, but did not give a commencement speech. Instead, at a special ceremony in January, he delivered a five-minute speech , left the stage to remove his graduation robes, and returned for a “fireside chat” with the school’s president, Ángel Cabrera.

“They love fireside chats,” Murray said of executives. “They want to sit down, have a chummy conversation, look charming, be charming. Say short things, kind of stick to their key messages.”

Kate Linkous, an executive vice president in Edelman’s corporate reputation practice, said she’s also noticed more conferences replacing their keynote speeches with fireside chats. “The commencement speech is one of our last few brilliant examples of a long-form speech,” she said.

Will the commencement address as we know it survive? One potential outcome is that the address just becomes boring, as speakers focus on avoiding controversy. “Whenever you’re in a position of trying to sand something down, you end up appealing to no one and saying nothing,” said Ben Krauss, a former speechwriter for Joe Biden and other politicians and the chief executive of the speech writing and strategic communications firm Fenway Strategies. His advice?

“People have been protesting commencements for as long as there have been commencements,” he said. “If someone interrupts, someone interrupts. That’s just kind of a natural feature of human communication.” — Sarah Kessler

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

The N.C.A.A. signed a potentially historic settlement. The college sports association and several top conferences agreed to a $2.8 billion pact that would pay student athletes for playing. If approved by a federal judge, the plan would be the biggest step yet in erasing the idea that college stars are amateurs — but skeptics worry the plan doesn’t resolve a number of major issues.

Nikki Haley opened the door for her donors to back Donald Trump. The former Republican presidential hopeful said she would vote for her onetime rival in November, seemingly making peace with a man she had castigated during the Republican primary. That could give cover to deep-pocketed benefactors like the hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin to give money to Trump, whose campaign fund-raising has trailed President Biden’s. Stephen Schwarzman, the Blackstone chief, said this week that he would back Trump .

Scarlett Johansson took on OpenAI. The actress, who played an A.I. assistant in the movie “Her,” accused the tech start-up of using a sound-alike voice for the latest version of its ChatGPT chatbot — after she turned the company down. The dispute reflected eroding trust in OpenAI and its chief, Sam Altman; Hollywood’s conflicted relationship with A.I.; and Silicon Valley’s continued tolerance of start-ups asking for forgiveness instead of permission .

The Justice Department sued Live Nation over its dominance of live entertainment. The antitrust suit accused the Ticketmaster parent of maintaining an illegal monopoly by locking venues and artists into exclusive contracts and threatening retribution to rivals. It’s the latest instance of the Biden administration’s crackdown on what it sees as unfair competition, and comes despite Live Nation’s endorsement of some aspects of the White House’s fight against so-called “junk fees.”

The F.D.I.C.’s chair said he planned to resign. Martin Gruenberg agreed to step down after losing Democratic support over what reports said was a toxic culture at the banking regulator. Republicans said that Gruenberg, who said he’ll leave when a replacement is in place, should go immediately, as Democrats seek to preserve their majority at an agency tasked with drafting tough new banking regulations.

The bankruptcy blame game

Red Lobster made news this week when it blamed its all-you-can-eat shrimp deal for helping tip the company into bankruptcy . The claim was part of what’s known as a first-day declaration, a legal filing that companies in bankruptcy make to explain why they ran into trouble.

These declarations are written carefully and strategically. A company “usually wants to present itself as the honest but unfortunate debtor,” Adam Levitin, a bankruptcy professor at Georgetown University Law Center, told DealBook. “It’s in bankruptcy for reasons that were not about bad management, but about just things out of its control in the world.”

That’s why so many companies that file for Chapter 11 protection cite macroeconomic trends or quirky exogenous factors, despite other issues being more culpable. In Red Lobster’s case, the company was dealing with expensive leases and the same challenges facing other casual dining companies.

The unlimited shrimp promotion — the brainchild of Red Lobster’s former chief, reportedly in conjunction with Thai Union, the chain’s parent — is unlikely to have been a primary cause for the filing. “The dollar value is not big enough, and it’s a little too indirect,” Vincent Buccola, a bankruptcy professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, told DealBook. (His guess: Red Lobster’s current management may be trying to imply the threat of future litigation against Thai Union. Thai Union, for its part, has denied the accusation. )

But it got DealBook thinking: What other unexpected factors have companies blamed for their bankruptcies?

Low-carb diets: The parent company of Twinkies and Wonder Bread, Interstate Bakeries, filed for bankruptcy in 2004, citing low-carb eating as a cause as the Atkins diet became all the rage. That said, the company also carried about $1.3 billion in debt, and had been criticized by analysts for a lack of innovation and high labor costs. The company filed for bankruptcy again in 2012 .

Twinkies ultimately had a happy ending: The investment firm Apollo Global Management and the financier Dean Metropoulos acquired the Hostess brand name and took that business through one of the most successful corporate transformations in recent memory. After going public in 2016, Hostess was sold to J.M. Smucker for $5.6 billion last year.

A helium shortage: Party City filed for bankruptcy in January 2023, blaming in part a global helium shortage driven by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But the retailer carried about $1.7 billion in debt and was still reeling from the pandemic, which had disrupted supply chains and put a damper on festive gatherings. (Its founder also blamed the store’s high prices ).

Party City emerged from bankruptcy in October after eliminating about $1 billion in debt and closing less profitable stores.

People fleeing Manhattan: When the luxury home goods retailer ABC Carpet & Home filed for bankruptcy in 2021, among the factors it cited was the “mass exodus of current and prospective customers leaving the city” during the pandemic. But the company had also been fighting with its landlord and fallen behind on its digital presence , which became a problem once the pandemic hit.

The retailer, which still operates its multicolor Manhattan store, later emerged from bankruptcy and was sold to an investment firm .

The numerical case for giving Elon Musk a big payday

Tesla this week pressed its case to investors that they should again approve Elon Musk’s $56 billion pay package at the electric auto maker’s annual meeting next month. The company said the compensation plan, which a judge struck down in January, did what it was supposed to do: motivate Musk to lead the company to significant growth. That included Tesla’s total shareholder return, which vastly outstripped those of other tech giants — the so-called Magnificent 7 — from March 2018, when shareholders first approved Musk’s pay deal , to the end of 2023.

“A deal should be a deal: Stockholders approved the plan. Elon hit the targets. We should hold up our end of the deal,” the company wrote in its presentation.

It’s worth noting that Tesla this year is the worst performing Magnificent 7 stock, down roughly 28 percent as of Friday’s market close.

Thanks for reading! We’ll see you Tuesday.

We’d like your feedback. Please email thoughts and suggestions to [email protected] .

Sarah Kessler is an editor for the DealBook newsletter and writes features on business and how workplaces are changing. More about Sarah Kessler

Lauren Hirsch joined The Times from CNBC in 2020, covering deals and the biggest stories on Wall Street. More about Lauren Hirsch

Michael de la Merced joined The Times as a reporter in 2006, covering Wall Street and finance. Among his main coverage areas are mergers and acquisitions, bankruptcies and the private equity industry. More about Michael J. de la Merced

The Campus Protests Over the Gaza War

News and Analysis

​Harvard said that it will no longer take positions on matters outside of the university , accepting the recommendations of a faculty committee that urged the school to reduce its messages on issues of the day.

​Weeks after counterprotesters attacked a pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of California, Los Angeles, the university police have made the first arrest related to the attack .

​​A union for academic workers in the University of California system announced that an ongoing strike challenging the system’s handling of pro-Palestinian demonstrations would extend to two more campuses , U.C.L.A. and U.C. Davis.

The Battle Over College Speech:  ​University demonstrations over the war in Gaza have reignited the debate over campus speech, and have led to a rethinking of who sets the terms for language in academia .

Making Sense of the Protests:  In the weeks leading up to graduation, our reporter spoke with more than a dozen students at Columbia University and Barnard College about how the campus protests had shaped them .

A Complex Summer:  Many university leaders and officials may be confronting federal investigations, disputes over student discipline  — and the prospect that the protests start all over again in the fall.

A New Litmus Test:  Some Jewish students say their views on Zionism — which are sometimes assumed — have affected their social life on campus .