Junk food is typically defined as food with little nutritional value that is high in calories, fat, sugar, salt, or caffeine. Junk food can include breakfast cereals, candies, chips, cookies, French fries, gum, hamburger, hot dogs, ice cream, sodas, and most sweet desserts.
The increase in obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure, certain cancers, tooth decay, and other diseases is directly associated with the increase in junk food.
Fats from junk food trigger the brain to want more food. This effect can last for several days.
More than $2 billion of candy is sold for Hallowe’en - more than any other holiday.
Almost 87% of food commercials aired on Saturday morning children shows (cartoons) are for junk food.
Today the United States has a $23 billion candy market. Candy sales have continued to increase despite concerns with junk food and obesity.
A Children’s Food Campaign (CFC) survey found that some baby food has as much, if not more, saturated fats and sugar as junk food.
Annually, Americans buy nearly $2 billion in Easter candies, including 90 million chocolate Easter bunnies, 16 billion jellybeans, and 700 million marshmallow treats.
Corn dextrin, a common thickener used in junk food, is also the glue on envelopes and postage stamps.
Young women who eat a junk food diet are at a higher risk for developing Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS).
Junk food became a part of the American diet during the 1920s, but it was through television advertising after WWII that junk food became more ubiquitous and nutritionists subsequently became more concerned.
Mothers who eat junk food while pregnant or breast-feeding have children who are prone to obesity throughout life. The children are also more prone to diabetes, raised cholesterol, and high blood fat.
Female cockroaches that ate junk food in a research study became fatter and took longer to reproduce than cockroaches that ate a healthier diet.
Researchers suggest that breast cancer rates in China are rising because of an increase in Western-style junk food and increasingly unhealthy lifestyles.
Additives and preservatives such as common food dyes and sodium benzoate can cause children to become more hyperactive and more easily distracted.
Alloxen, a by-product of bleaching white flour which is often found in junk food, leads to diabetes in healthy experimental animals by destroying their pancreatic beta cells.
