Junk Food

Donald Cook
11/12/13
English 105

Junk Food In our Society

Junk food can be perceived in many different ways depending on what kind of person you are. Do you love junk food because you love the sugary flavor or do you like junk food just because it’s good? Many people can perceive this situation as one in a dangerous and harmful way. Junk food is very accessible and typically can require as little movement as possible considering the fact you can just drive through a drive-through without any movement at all and order a nice burger off the dollar menu. Is the reason why people eat so much fatty food because of the fact they are easily accessible and may took only 2 minutes to order compared to broccoli which would take longer to cook up and eat or is because they just like the feeling that they are packing on calories. Most people tend to eat junk food because of the fact that it makes them feel good about themselves in a way that they can just eat and not worry about the outcome until they finish what they eat. Many people may argue this but I believe the biggest effect on us is the urge to stay away from junk food when once in a while you shouldn’t have to worry about that.

Fast food restaurants are easily one of the biggest problems we have for our ‘overweight’ society. You see all over television how todays society is in danger of having the most overweight people that we’ve ever had. Is it because people are getting lazy and technology is becoming more of a habit than going to the gym? Today’s society is growing more and more lazy each and every day. With the improvement of technology, kids are staying inside more than ever and this isn’t going to get better anytime soon. With the technology on the rise, people aren’t going to want to work out as much anymore but rather sit inside on their handheld device and not want to move all day. With the effects of fast food and junk food, we can’t afford to stay inside all day and not want to work out. The calories will build up and you’ll be getting fatter than you want to be from the fast food you are eating.

While junk food may taste good and be very addicting, it’s been known to have a payback on people who may eat it. Fast food and junk food are high in fat, sodium, and sugar that can lead to obesity and other health problems. Some effects that junk food has caused on us has been it has affected our energy levels, contributes to poor performance, causes obesity, damages the heart and liver, and can lead to diabetes. Since junk food doesn’t contain the nutrients your body needs, you may feel chronically fatigued and lack the energy you need to complete daily tasks. The high levels of sugar in junk food puts your metabolism under stress; when you eat refined sugar, your pancreas secretes high amounts of insulin to prevent a dangerous spike in blood sugar levels. Junk food also contains large amounts of fat therefore this causes you to gain weight and could become obese. Junk food also contains large amounts of sodium that can lead to heart disease and damage your liver and heart. After a while of eating junk food, the high levels of sugar and simple carbohydrates in junk food can lead to type 2 diabetes. This occurs because eating too much sugar puts your metabolism under stress; when you eat a lot of refined white sugar and simple carbohydrates, your body has to pump up insulin production to prevent a dangerous spike in blood sugar levels.

With all the bad affects of junk food, there has to be a reason why we still eat junk food when we know what the end result could cause. I believe one of the biggest reasons why we have junk food or the purpose of junk food is to give people something to eat that is cheap and affordable. Since junk food is cheap and tastes delicious, I believe this is a big reason why people tend to grab a bag of candy rather than something else to eat because they not only like the price on the label but rather a bond towards what they may be eating. “But maybe, feeling connected to her food, in the end, wasn’t as important as being connected to the animal during its life and final movements” (Goodman 248). A reason that Goodman brings up to the fact of people towards food is the fact that they might be connected to it and wondering how it got there and where it might have been that interests them and makes them eat it. I can recall a night I had in which all I wanted to eat were cake and some m&m’s. I didn’t want chicken or meatloaf or milk at the dinner table, all I wanted was some sugary food that made me feel good about eating. While it may not of been the healthiest of choices, I needed the one night to not worry about what I was eating and just eat. It felt quite good afterwards in a sense that I wasn’t worrying about the calories I way eating but the way it tasted when it went into my stomach.

An example of a typical feeling that a girl would have about thinking about a simple piece of cake would not be how good the cake tastes but how long she will have to work out or how many calories it will put on her. “These are big trade-offs for a simple piece of cake-add five hundred calories, subtract well-being, allure, and self-esteem- and the feelings behind them are anything but vain and shallow” (Knapp 235). This quote that Knapp uses in her essay is emphasizing the point that a simple piece of cake can throw off everything for a girl. Instead of thinking about the effects that the cake will put on you and how much you need to work out, Caroline Knapp wants to get the point across that woman should stop thinking about the way they look and the foods they eat and just eat it even if there are consequences at the end of it.

So we can come to the conclusion that the main purpose of junk food is to eat something that’s tastes delicious and feel good about it. Even though it may not be healthy, eating it once in a while isn’t going to kill you. You can eat chicken or meat 6 days a week but you want that one day where you can eat something that isn’t as healthy and feel good about it. I believe this has happened to all of us at one point in which we just wanted a day in which we didn’t want to eat anything healthy at all. You want the day where you can put the thoughts aside about how long you will have to work out at the gym for or how many sit ups you might have to do to work off the calories. It’s a great feeling that you can just eat to eat and not worry about the calories you are packing on. The sugary flavor of the food may addict you to pick it over a juicy piece of steak. Everyone needs that one-day to eat what he or she want and not worry about the end result!