Posts Tagged ‘junk food’

Junk food leaves an indelible mark on your appearance and health status. The Halloween candy you hid from the kids has been gone for at least 2 months. The pies and buttered mashed potatoes are no longer a regular staple at your dinner table. The assorted chocolates, candy canes and tasty beverages are just a fond memory. The bubbles from the New Year’s champagne are something you are already dreaming about for next year.

Why do they have to be gone so soon? Oh, but wait! They are not permanently gone. As we look in the mirror we see where their new home is.

Junk Food, the Tangible Results

Uh oh! Now what? Many people find themselves a couple to a few pounds heavier after the first of the year. It’s tempting to go on a crash diet or take a quick fix pill to help shed those pesky pounds. While you may lose weight at first, it’s likely those homesick pounds will find their way back to you like a needy relative. They may even bring a few friends! The best diet is no diet at all. At least not in the sense of the word we have grown accustomed to hearing.

Your eating habits define who you are. You eat junk food, you feel and look like junk. You eat mood altering foods and you are moody. When you drink high sugar, high caffeine drinks, your energy will rise and fall. This sounds like a crazy way to fuel our marvelous bodies, but for so many; this has become a normal way of life. After eating like this, the next step is often going on medication for diabetes or high blood pressure. These are the tangible results of junk food.

Finding the Fix

Finding the fix means thinking healthy and taking action. You have control! When you eat the way nature intended us to with vibrant fruits and vegetables, whole grains, nuts, seeds fish, healthy proteins and plenty of fresh water; you become vibrant and healthy. Your body naturally stops craving too much food because it is satisfied from the fiber and correct balance of proteins, carbs and healthy fats. Instead of envying the people who look like they are healthy and full of life, you will be that person! But wait! What about when the holiday season comes back around? Consider the 80/20 rule. Eat right 80% of the time so if you slip up 20% of the time, you can use your new found energy to work off the extra calories. Start this minute with positive thoughts and a determination to improve your life!

New research published in the American Journal of cardiology claims that fast food restaurants should give out statins to counter the effects of fatty foods. Fast food and statins are the new proposed combination plate.

Statin dangers

The statin pill can be as risky as the cheeseburger. Statins deplete your body of nutrients that you need to help the heart function. Statins have serious side effects. It can damage the liver, pancreas and muscles.

However, the reason some doctors give for not endorsing this idea, is that it would encourage people to lead unhealthy lives. This would mean that they would be at a higher risk for developing Type 2 diabetes.

This is the case of dumb and dumber. The logic from each side can only be understood from a medical perspective. The issue here; treat everything with a pharmaceutical. In other words mask the problem.

When the cholesterol numbers are lower and the diet is the same junk, you wind up without any benefit from the pills. The drugs don’t cut the rate of adverse events; it just makes the numbers look better. The second part of the problem isn’t the fat, but the carbs in the form or processed flour, and sugar. Diabetes risk is manly a processed food problem, not a fat one.

Junk Food Junky

People are hooked on the taste of fast food. Giving them drugs with the meal isn’t going to solve anything. It would compound the problem, there would be two dangers, instead of one. Only the medical community with a drug company’s education could come up with anything this ridiculous.

Addiction is the new eating disorder of the 21^st century.

Eating Disorders

The list of eating disorders is reduced to either starving yourself, or stuffing yourself and purging. What if there are reasons to call our obsession with and binging on junk food one of the most dangerous trends. The shocking part it is a growing movement, making its way to the most vulnerable victims our children.

U.S. researchers working with rats have shown for the first time the compulsion to overeat has the same biological mechanism as the addiction to drugs such as cocaine and heroin. It affects the brain’s pleasure circuitry in a similar way.

The study was conducted by Scripps Research Associate Professor Paul J Kenny and graduate student Paul M Johnson. The Scripps Research Institute is in Jupiter, Florida. It was published in the online issue of Nature Neuroscience.

Addiction

According to a statement from the Scripps Research Institute the study confirms what many obesity patients have been saying for years binging on junk food is just about impossible to control.

Kenny and Johnson show that as pleasure centers in the brain become less responsive, rats quickly develop compulsive overeating habits. This is the same progressively deteriorating chemical balance in reward brain circuits seen in rats that over consume cocaine or heroin.

Kenny said the study confirms that junk food can become “addictive.” One of the tests of addictive behavior is to train lab animals to anticipate an electric shock. At first the animals receive the mild shocks at the same time as light coming on, eventually they learn to anticipate the shock when they see the light and avoid doing the thing that triggers the shock.

In rats that become “addicted’ to junk food ignored the light and continued to binge. The junk food consisted of what people eat: cheesecake, bacon, sausage, and Ding-Dongs a chocolate like cake.

Junk Food Wins

Junk food wins even with rats. Lab rats were divided into three groups. The first group got a balanced healthy diet, the second group had access to high-calorie “junk” food for one hour a day, and the third group was fed healthy food, but had unlimited access to the high-calorie “junk food.”

The third group quickly showed a preference for the junk food, eating it all day long and becoming obese.

“They always went for the worst type of food,” Kenny said. “As a result, they took in twice the calories as the control rats,” when they removed the junk food and left the healthy diet, they refused to eat.

“ The change in the diet preference was so great that they basically starved themselves for two weeks after they were cut off from junk food,” said Kenny.

Conclusion

It doesn’t take a genius to know what group we belong to. We are in the third group minus the healthy food. What will it do to us, just look around. The next eclipse will be because we block the view.

Understanding this should make us realize we are being left without the power, or ability to withstand the temptations.