Table Of Contents
Introduction
One day,
when my mother had gone out, I secretly went to the box where the chocolates
were kept and ate approximately 5-8 chocolates. As I reached for another one I
realized my mistake. I was eating too much junk food!
If you eat
lots of junk food, think again. Junk food has many bad effects on the body.
This feature article will tell you all about them. The topics covered in this
feature article will be:-
⦁ First,
what is junk food and what are the types?
⦁ Next,
the bad effects of junk food.
⦁ Finally,
how junk food is good to eat in small amounts and how you can limit you junk
food.
Which Foods Are Junk Food?
Do you know
what junk food is? Junk food is any unhealthy food item or any food item with
low nutrition.
Some
examples of junk food are burgers, doughnuts and french fries.
There are
two main categories of junk food:- Sweets and Fast Food. Sweets are food items
with lots of sugar, like lollipops and chocolate. Fast food is highly processed
food or food with lots of fat, like pizzas and potato chips.
Now we know
the categories of junk food. How does junk food affect us? Let's find out!
Why Is Junk Food Bad?
In the las
sub-topic we learnt that any unhealthy food is junk food. Why is junk food bad?
What does it do to you? There are many harmful effects of junk food.
One of them
is that sweets, which contain lots of sugar, have all of it turned into
carbohydrates. The excess carbohydrates gets turned into fat. So, the more
sweets you eat, the more obese you get!
Secondly,
many junk foods are salty. If you eat too many salty foods, like potato chips,
there is excess sodium in your body. Excess sodium increases your risk for
kidney stones, kidney disease, stomach cancer and osteoporosis.
Lastly,
most fast food contains saturated fat, which also adds on to the fat in your
body.
Now you can
clearly see that junk food is unhealthy for your body.
When Is Junk Food Okay?
So far we
have only seen the bad effects of junk food. Did you know that junk food can be
good but only if eaten within limits? Junk food is okay as long as it is eaten
in small amounts.
Lets start
with chocolate. Chocolate is good for you as it has sugars. If you eat a
quarter of an ounce of chocolate daily, you might actually lower your risk of
experiencing a heart attack or stroke! "Dark chocolate exhibits the
greatest effects, milk chocolate fewer and white chocolate no effects."
says Brian Buijsse, a nutritional epidemiologist at the German Institute of
Human Nutrition.
Fast food,
on the other hand, mostly contains fats (Example:- Oil), which is needed for
the body. In fact, fats are a part of the food pyramid, but are bad if eaten
too much.
If you eat
chocolate everyday, eat only a maximum of approximately eight grams. Do not eat
fast food everyday, eat approximately once in two weeks maximum. I hope you
limit your junk food reasonably.
Conclusion
In this
feature article we have learnt what junk food is and the positive and negative
effects of junk food. We have also seen a survey on the amount of junk food my
friends eat. Hence, we conclude that too much junk food is bad for you, but is
okay if eaten in small quantities. I hope this article helps you adhere to
this.
Glossary
Osteoporosis:- A condition in which bones become weak and
brittle
Epidemiology:- The study and analysis of health and disease
conditions in defined populations
Dark Chocolate:- Chocolate with high cocoa and low sugar
Milk Chocolate:- Chocolate with high sugar and low cocoa
White Chocolate:- Chocolate with no cocoa, only sugar and
cocoa butter
References
http://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/burger-facts-trivia_n_3654636
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/03/30/chocolate.egg.per.day/
http://www.healthline.com/health/fast-food-effects-on-body
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