Durfee, Gardner, Pace 1 Samantha Durfee, Justen Gardner, Taylor Pace Wolverton English 1010 December 20, 2013

Junk Food: A Deathly Indulgence Do you know what is in your food? Do you know where it comes from or how healthy it is? Most people dont know where their food comes from or exactly what effect it has on their bodies. What we eat can have a bigger impact on our health than exercise, because it creates habits with long-term effects. Everyone has a different opinion on how to eat healthy in todays society. However, our society is not in good health. There are hundreds of diets out there, each promising to make you look like an Olympian while allowing you to indulge here and there. Many people say they know the secret to eating healthy. The most simple of those strategies involves staying away from junk food. Junk food is a large portion of Americas health problem. What is junk food? In this case, junk food is classified as foods composed mainly of fat or sugar and foods that are heavily processed, such as soda, sweets, and chips. Junk food is very prevalent to American society, and it has a negative impact on people. The consumption of these foods makes people less healthy and less able to live their lives in a productive manner. America seems to be saturated with unhealthy foods. Many people, including Michelle Obama, are very concerned with the amount of junk food America consumes. How can we help America eat healthier? We believe that the problem lies with the image junk food presents and the fact that it is cheap and easily attainable. We believe that junk food would become less prevalent in society if it was less popular.

Durfee, Gardner, Pace 2 Historically, obtaining food has always been a central part of peoples lives. Until recently though, the problem was always that people didnt have enough food to survive. Because society has developed and become able to produce larger food surpluses, people no longer need to eat solely for survival. We eat to enjoy. Now many have too much food. Any food we can think of is at our fingertips, and it is making us obese or otherwise unhealthy. People dont realize how much they are actually eating, regardless of what food they are consuming. Everything we eat has calories, and we must balance our daily caloric needs with the number of calories we actually eat in order to maintain a healthy diet. If we eat too much food, the excess calories are processed into fat. If we eat unhealthy food, fat and cholesterol can build up in our bodies and lead to various health problems. We need to pay much better attention to the types and amounts of food we consume. If we neglect to do so, we are putting ourselves at risk for disease in the future. Junk food has a long and complex history, dating back to the first hamburgers and hotdogs and the first fast food restaurants. Since the early 20th century, food surpluses have been growing and foods are being processed to greater lengths. In the early 1900s, you could not find bags of chips or packs of Oreos. Since then, food companies have been altering their food more and more in order to appeal to the senses of the average person. Many foods are specifically engineered to have a certain effect on people. In recent years, attention has been brought to the negative effects of these heavily processed manufactured foods. We now understand that they are a problem. The amount of fats and sugars in these foods can lead to obesity, diabetes, and heart problems. Foods high in sugar can become addictive. These foods trigger a chemical reaction in a persons brain that releases a chemical called dopamine. This chemical is the

Durfee, Gardner, Pace 3 very same as the one that is released when the brain is stimulated with drugs such as cocaine and heroin. It creates a temporary feel-good sensation. Because it is temporary, the action is done again and again to bring back the feel-good state. In fact, studies show that the more junk food you eat, the more you crave that food. This, in time, can lead to junk food addiction and obesity (Beil). One of the main things contributing to the popularity of junk food is advertisement. We see advertisements for junk food everywhere we go. Many professional athletes promote and endorse junk food. Researchers found that children from the ages of 12 to 17 saw more athlete-endorsed food brand commercials than adults. Michelle Obama, the First Lady, has been focusing on childhood obesity and the impacts of the endorsements by the professional athletes. She is fighting against childhood obesity and encouraging children to become more active. Not only professional athletes have a major impact on the way we view the food we eat; celebrities play a significant role in influencing our choice of food as well. Beyonc and Shaquille O'Neal both endorse sodas. Because role models like Peyton Manning and LeBron James endorse such foods and beverages, kids buy them thinking they can be just like their heroes. This in turn contributes to the obesity epidemic and the problem with junk food. Children can only eat the food that is provided for them. If parents are providing mainly junk food, the children cant help but be unhealthy. They arent given the chance to be healthy. Junk food has become something that we tend to depend on in our society. Its cheap, convenient, and above all it taste good. Many people eat junk food because it is what is available. It is in almost all vending machines and grocery stores. It is well advertized and affordable. Junk food is kind to our grocery bill. With the cost of

Durfee, Gardner, Pace 4 sugar down more than it ever has been, junk food is becoming more and more affordable. However, there seem to be issues that are linked to the junk food industry. Its affordability allows people to buy it in bulk, which can lead to overeating. Increasingly over the past three decades, more people spend money on fast food and junk food than they do buying groceries. Almost a quarter of the average grocery bill is being spent on processed foods and sweets. With so many people spending so much money on unhealthy food, Americas health is worsening. This makes it extremely difficult to tackle childhood obesity. People eat junk food because they like the way it tastes. Most dont care what it does to their bodies. One of our biggest problems when we start eating junk food is how we justify doing so. One might say as they open a bag of extra cheddar potato chips, Our brain likes variety When it comes to food, if you experience the same taste over and over again, then you start to get less pleasure from itJunk foods, however are designed to avoid this sensory specific response... Our brain will not get tired of eating them (McGuire). We may think that junk food is the solution to blandness: it has a strong taste, yet you never get tired of it. However, there are many different ways that we can eat foods without dulling our senses. You could easily put some variety in your diet. McGuire also lets us believe that [Junk food] brings us joy and satisfaction, one Starburst at a time. He is trying to make us think that junk food makes us happy, but in reality, it leaves us without energy. All the sugars and fats in junk food leave us feeling tired and cranky. They even play a part in helping us feel depressed. McGuire next claims, one need not look much further than its actual name to know that junk food knows EXACTLY what it is. And furthermore, [we are] well aware that what [we] are

Durfee, Gardner, Pace 5 eating is commonly referred to as junk food. He demands that we know exactly what we are putting in our bodies, but this is not necessarily true. Most people dont really realize that the burger they are putting in their body contains 4,556 calories or that their breakfast burrito filled with eggs, ham, potatoes, cheese, and onion has an estimated 3,764 calories (5 Most). People dont realize that the meal they are eating contains more than enough energy to sustain them all day. People dont realize how bad certain foods are for them. They assume that these foods are healthy because they contain eggs and potatoes or tomatoes and lettuce. They eat more than they need because it tastes good. They cant wait to get their next fix. Nobody knows for sure what is to be done to counter these negative effects. People boycott fast food or adopt vegetarian diets in an attempt to change the way society views food. No matter how hard it tries, society cant seem to rid itself of unhealthy foods. Soda is a major contributor to the junk food epidemic. Most people in America drink soda frequently. One 12 oz. can of soda has 150 calories, no fat, hardly any sodium, and only 40 grams of sugar. Surely one can is no big deal. However, if you drink a can of soda daily, you consume 150 calories every day. Consuming 150 calories a day for 365 days will add up to 54,750 calories each year. Every 3500 calories adds one pound to your bodyweight, and that one soda per day adds 15.64 pounds per year. The average daily intake for Americans is about 2.6 glasses per day. Looking at these numbers, it is not hard to see why America has so many health problems. There are far healthier solutions, such as adding sugar free crystal light flavoring to your water.

Durfee, Gardner, Pace 6 The potato chip is Americas number one snack food. It was invented in 1853 and has been immensely popular in America ever since (Potato Fun). Potatoes are wonderful and are used to make a variety of foods. Potatoes are Americans favorite vegetable: every year we consume about 140 pounds of potatoes per person (Potato Fun). Potatoes were once served as dessert, salted and hot in a napkin (Potato Fun). A single factory can produce 7,000 pounds of potato chips in just two hours (Potato Fun). Meanwhile, the average person consumes about 96 one-ounce bags of potato chip each year. Thats equivalent to 6 pounds a year (Potato Fun). It is estimated that, without the consumption of potato chips, people in the US will gain only 1 pound on average each year. According to the Harvard School of Public Health, the potato chip in the biggest factor to the pound-per-year weight gain (Are Americans). This makes sense because potato chips taste great, have a good texture, and have a tendency to bring a person back for more than one. It a greater threat than ice cream, candy, or soda. The nice thing about that potato is that it can be prepared in many different ways. Even though those French fries are very delicious, they add more weight gain than a baked, broiled, or mashed potato (Are Americans). This is due to the serving size that contains about 500 to 600 calories opposed to a serving of baked potato with 280 calories (Are Americans). There is no need to take the potato out of your life. However, making the healthier decisions will help control your weight and make you feel good inside and out. Being healthy does not require taking all the good-tasting food out of your life completely. Other, more healthy foods can taste good too. Just one extra portion of Greek yogurt each day can help you control your weight and limit your junk food intake, and it

Durfee, Gardner, Pace 7 tastes great with fruit. Choosing to eat good foods that are healthy will help you become healthier. Most people eat junk food solely because they like the way it tastes. Junk food is designed specifically so we will like it, and it does its job well. Colin McGuire states Junk food is a part of life, a part of human existence. We were predestined to love DOTS and BBQ potato chips Thats simply how we were wired (McGuire). It is completely normal to crave junk food. That doesnt mean that people cant resist that craving and just eat healthier. Americans need to make the conscious choice to eat healthy food. Nobody besides yourself can make you eat healthy. Many junk foods are so addicting that many people trying to stop eating junk food view themselves as recovering addicts. [Their] drugs of choice [are] sweets, carbohydrates, and any sugary, fatty, salty substance that never grew from the ground or walked upon it (Beil). Sometimes it is very hard to stop eating junk food. There is help available, however, and anyone can quit eating junk food if they put their mind to it. There are many proposed solutions to the problem of junk food in America. One of the most prominent proposals is to place a tax on junk food (Franck et al, 1949). This strategy is based on the idea that the government can directly control the prices of junk food, making them artificially high. Proponents of this solution suggest that the tax will make people less likely to buy junk food. However, that is not necessarily the case. On October 1, 2011, Denmark introduced the worlds first fat tax, with the aim of reducing cardiovascular disease However, the Danish government repealed the tax in November 2012, less than 12 months after its implementation. Danish shoppers had found ways to circumvent the controversial tax by purchasing taxed items across the border, in Germany

Durfee, Gardner, Pace 8 or Sweden (Franck et al, 1949). People will eat what they want to eat whether there is a tax on it or not. The government cannot force people to be healthy. People must come to understand that eating healthy food is the better option. They must make that choice for themselves. American society is truly saturated with unhealthy food. Unfortunately, society will never be rid of junk food altogether. It is always going to be there for those who want it. What we can do is change peoples attitudes toward junk food. If people realize that junk food is harming them, they will be more likely to leave junk food behind and adopt more healthy eating habits. There are so many healthy recipes in the world today that the possibilities are endless. Many people simply go to the closest vending machine and get the same old candy bar they have gotten for the past month, not thinking much of it. It is likely that this candy bar does not taste as good to that person as it did when they first got it a month ago. Even junk food is something that grows old. If you look back through history, these junk foods werent accessible until recently, and people lived just fine without them. In Ancient Greece you could see the people munching on figs, grapes, and fish. They did not eat DOTS or BBQ potato chips and they lived long, healthy, normal lives (Ancient Greece). It is possible to find good tasting food that is healthy. If healthy, good tasting food became popular, then many people would eat healthier. Junk food is a big problem in our society. It contributes to obesity and other health problems. It is addictive and harms our bodies. It is made to look popular and heavily advertised. America needs to consume less junk food. People need to be educated about how junk food affects their bodies. People need to know that junk food is limiting

Durfee, Gardner, Pace 9 their potential. People need to see junk food not as popular and cool, but as harmful and addictive. However, the government cant force us to be healthy. That is an individual choice. Americans need to choose to cut back on junk food.

Durfee, Gardner, Pace 10 Works Cited 5 Most fattening foods. Food & Recipes. N.D. Web MD. Web. December 19, 2013 Ancient Greece for Kids. Greek Food. N.D. Web. December 18, 2013. "Are Americans Eating Too Many Potato Chips?" redOrbit. n.d. Web. December 19, 2013. Beil, Laura. "The Snack-Food Trap." Newsweek 160.19 (2012): 44. TOPICsearch. EBSCO. Web. 6 Dec. 2013.

Franck, Caroline; Sonia Grandi, and Mark Eisenberg. Taxing Junk Food to Counter Obesity. Dec. 2013. "How Much Sugar is in one can of Soda?" One can of Soda. n.d. Web. December 15,2013. McGuire, Colin. "Weird science." Frederick News-Post, The (MD) 27 Nov. 2013: Newspaper Source. EBSCO. Web. 6 Dec. 2013. "Potato Fun Facts." Northern Plains Potato Growers Association. n.d. Web. December 19, 2013. American Journalof Public Health (November 2013): 1949-1952. Web. 6