How Bad Could Fast Food Actually Be For You?

Eating out occasionally won’t do you any harm, but if you’re like most millennials and spend 45% of your food budget eating out you might be asking for health problems and weight gain. Do you remember the 2004 documentary Supersize Me, where a man ate Mcdonalds and still lost weight? “By the end of the challenge, Williams was down to 182lbs and had gone from 10.85 percent body fat to 7.59 percent,” reported UK’s Independent in 2018. 

“It just goes to show that fast food is not necessarily the devil,” said Williams (the man in the documentary.) 

 

So, how bad could fast food actually be for you? This listicle has all the answers for you! 

1.  Fast food usually doesn’t off a lot in terms of nutrition; and most of the time it doesn’t even adequately fill you up. “Junk foods are designed to convince your brain that it is getting nutrition but to not fill you up. Receptors in your mouth and stomach tell your brain about the mixture of proteins, fats, carbohydrates in a particular food, and how filling that food is for your body.” - James Clear 
2. Way too many carbs! Overtime this alters your body’s insulin response (blood sugar) and can lead to diabetes. In fact, there’s research proving that eating fast food too often can lead to type II diabetes and weight gain, says The Global Diabetes Community.  
3. On days you buy your family fast food they’ll consume more calories of poorer quality. "We know for children, on days that they consume fast food, they eat about 120 more calories that day. They also consume more sugar and sodium and fat on the days they eat fast food," says The Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity. 
4. Fast food will make you over-eat and it will take you longer to reach your wellness goals. James Clear points to,  “Rapid food meltdown and vanishing caloric density. Foods that rapidly vanish or “melt in your mouth” signal to your brain that you’re not eating as much as you actually are. In other words, these foods literally tell your brain that you’re not full, even though you’re eating a lot of calories.”
5. Fast-food is literally designed to make you an addict! Steven Witherly a food scientist said in an interview, “Food companies will spend millions of dollars to discover the most satisfying level of crunch in a potato chip. Their scientists will test for the perfect amount of fizzle in a soda.”
6. It can make you depressed? If you eat fast food you’re 51% more likely to develop depression. Sound crazy, unfortunately, it’s been proven. The exact reasons are still a little murky, but you can read the long-term study, here.
7. If your diet mainly consists of fast food you’re more likely to be single. Okay, this one is a little cooky, but here are the deets from ScienceDaily: “The study demonstrates that those participants who eat the most fast food and commercial baked goods are more likely to be single, less active and have poor dietary habits[...]”
8. The more money you have the easier it will be to convince yourself to eat out. CNN reports, “The percentage of adults who said they consumed fast food rose with family income level, according to the report. Overall, 31.7% of lower-income, 36.4% of middle-income, and 42% of higher-income adults said they had eaten fast food.” If you can afford convenience why not, It’s a slippery slope.
9. You’re more likely to be eating processed meat. “Processed meat is meat that has been preserved by curing, salting, smoking, drying, or canning,” says Healthline.com. Processed meats are linked to cancer and heart disease. 
10. There's a scary link to infertility and birth defects. “Processed food contains phthalates; chemicals that interrupt how your hormones behave,” says a study by Environmental Health Perspectives.

To truly be healthy it's important to look past calories. Individuals can be slim (or lose weight) and still be very unhealthy. Here at Body Complete Rx we want everyone to live a long, happy, and healthy life!