Junk Food Facts

Here are your junk food facts, simply stated: Great taste, very easy to manufacture and prepare, easy to transport, long shelf life and very bad for your health!

It doesn’t matter how bad junk food may be for your health, it is a global business that is worth hundreds of billions of dollars, making junk food a great part of your lives, with many of you suffering from their negative health effects.

• More than $100 billion is spent on fast food in USA alone every year.

• Obesity is the second biggest killer after smoking in United States.

• A great majority of Americans eat at fast food chains- Mc Donald’s, Burger King and KFC regularly- at least twice a month.

• Cartoon networks are filled with junk food commercials of mainly candies, soft drinks, fast foods and processed snacks, targeting children, aiming to increase sales and more importantly to create brand loyalty.

• Toys are often used as an incentive to sell junk food to children.

• Pregnant and breast-feeding women increase their children’s risk of becoming obese while eating junk food during pregnancy and breast-feeding.

• Artificial ingredients mean a hell a lot of chemicals. You will find that there is not a single fruit in some fruit flavored drinks, but tens of artificial substitutes.

• A can of coke contains ten teaspoons of sugar and diet varieties contain harmful sugar substitutes- sweeteners. An average adult drinks 500 cans of soft drinks every year in the United States.

• Fizzy drinks are extremely profitable, that’s why they are aggressively marketed by fast food chains. It doesn’t cost much to make these drinks filled with cheap and nasty ingredients- sugar, water and artificial flavors.

*Before we continue with junk food facts, I’d like to tell you about my favorite diet program that uses a lot of the healthy lower GI foods:Isabel de los Rios’ ‘The Diet Solution Program’.

Common Junk Foods:

Many breakfast cereals, cereal bars, cookies, cakes, french fries, crisps, candies, chocolate bars, most sweet desserts, hamburgers, soft drinks, fruit drinks, fruit yogurts, potato wafers, cheese puffs, some ready meals, sodas, chicken nuggets, canned pasta, fried foods, milkshakes, muffins and even some baby foods.

Junk Food Facts- Nutrition:

• Sugar is addictive, combined with bad fats they trigger your brain to want more food.

• Junk foods have little or no nutritional value and hardly any minerals and vitamins.

• They are high in empty calories in small volumes, sugar, unhealthy fats and salt.

• More of junk foods mean less of healthy foods. You won’t eat your fruits and vegetables or drink your orange juice and teas when you are already eating chocolates and crisps and drinking coke every day. Let’s face it, foods that contain disgusting fats and sugars can taste good.

• Satiety index is usually very low in junk foods, people don’t tend to feel full easily due to low fiber, high sugar, high glycemic index content and they end up overeating.

Harmful Effects of Junk Foods:

• Weight gain and obesity

• High blood pressure

• Heart complications

• Stroke

• High cholesterol and long-term liver damage

• Asthma and rashes in children- due to artificial flavors and colors

• Type 2 Diabetes

• Certain cancers

• Impaired functioning of brain

• Tooth decay and other dental problems

• Hyperactivity in children

• Osteoporosis and bone fracture (soft drinks) 

Return from Junk Food Facts to Glycemic Index home page 

Or take me back to Childhood Obesity from Junk Food Facts