The Effect Of Fast Foods

                Eating fast foods can have a significant impact on our health. Though many people enjoy eating junk food and think it tastes great, the health consequences can be serious, and can range from everything to low energy levels to weight gain and illness. Fast food is often high in sugar, salt, white flour, and fat, particularly saturated fat. It is often heavily processed and prepackaged, making it easy to prepare and consume. A few examples of foods often considered to be junk food include fast food, sweets such as ice cream, candy, donuts, and hamburgers, soda, and potato chips, among many others.

               Nowadays, everybody are enjoying the taste of fast foods. Because of fast foods are a very quick and easy way to eat if you are in a hurry. Fast foods are the most popular food because they are delicious, affordable and readily available. Moreover, fast food is all good tasting, except the fact that it is not nutritionally balanced. It might affect your health if consumed on the regular basis. Fast foods are loaded with lots of fat, sugar, calories, salt and carbohydrate and therefore they are not all healthy. Have you ever asked yourself how often do you eat fast food per week? Once? Everyday?

                According to the fear that we are eating our way to depression is already prompting governments to take action. The US Department of Defence is now funding a trial that will deliver daily nutrient-rich food parcels to a group of former soldiers, to see if it can reduce suicide rates in army veterans. And at the start of this year, the European Union launched the 9m euro MoodFood project to further explore the way different nutrients may influence our minds. Certainly, no one is suggesting that a new diet should immediately replace existing treatments; Jacka’s volunteers will still be taking their medications as well as changing their eating habits. But if healthier eating can improve their recovery rate – or prevent some people developing symptoms in the first place – it would make for a simple, complementary way to help tackle mental illness.

                 In the past Thai people used to eat healthy, freshly prepared food with their families in the home. Nowadays, especially young people, prefer to eat fast food such as hamburgers, fried chicken, or pizza. There are many reasons for the popularity of fast food. One of the main reasons is the change in lifestyle. Many people in Thailand, are working long hours, shifts, or extended school days. They don’t have time to find ingredients or prepare good food. Every morning, we have to start a day in the worst traffic, and this can result in less time being available for preparing family meals. Another reason is advertising. Thailand is a free-market country, with all forms of media such as the Internet and satellite television, and people like to try new products and different kinds of fast food.

                  Even if fast foods are a very comfortable and quick way to get food if you are in a rush hour, but there is a dark side to this convenience. The truth about fast foods is most fast foods are generally bad for both people and the environment. The production of food is in a way harmful to the environment. The food itself is a potential risk to people's health. In addition to many people who prefer eating a fast food meal than a home cooked one, do not realize that in fact they spend more money than they should. All this is happening for many people to enjoy fast cooked meals every day. The fast food is very high in fats and cholesterol. People, who regularly eat fast cooked meals, are causing themselves a great danger loading their organisms with fats and building up cholesterol in their blood vessels. This is why we see so many people suffering from being overweight, having heart attacks, colorectal cancer and many diseases. There are many effects of eating fast food : impacts on energy levels, weight gain, causes depression, increases the risk of heart disease, affects the brain function, increases your risk of cancer and so on.

               The first effect of eating fast food is its impact on energy levels. Many people skip breakfast or other meals throughout the day, choosing instead to grab a quick snack or a soft drink. The fast food causes energy levels to spike, which people like, but then energy levels will quickly plummet, sending one back into the kitchen for another quick snack. In addition, fast food can cause moodiness, and make it difficult to get enough sleep at night, so energy levels are never restored to normal.

                The second of the most obvious effects from eating fast food is weight gain. People who eat a lot of fast food tend to gain weight quickly, which can lead to obesity over time; this extra weight then has an impact on the health of the rest of the body. It can raise cholesterol and blood pressure, contributing to heart disease.

                 The third of the most obvious effects from eating fast food is when the body does not get proper nutrition, it can become difficult to concentrate. It can also cause depression. Keep all of these health effects of fast food in mind before eating anything; a healthy diet can lead to greater energy levels, improved mood and concentration ability, weight loss, and decreased risk factors for heart disease and diabetes. Though fast food may be easy and fast, its health impacts are too great to ignore

                  The fourth of the most obvious effects from eating fast food is increase the risk of heart disease: fast food items are loaded with saturated fats and trans fats that directly increase triglyceride and bad cholesterol levels in the blood, and heart disease. Moreover, causing a sudden spike in blood sugar level increases, junk food damages the linings of the blood vessels causing chronic inflammation. This inflammation causes bad cholesterol to stick to the walls of the arteries, blocking blood flow to the heart. When they’re blocked enough, heart attack occurs. The more weight you put on, the higher your risk of suffering from heart attack.

                  The fifth of the most obvious effects from eating fast food is only one week of eating fast food is enough to trigger memory impairment in rats. Recent research in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity shows that suggests that bad fats (trans fats) from junk food tends to replace healthy fats in the brain and interferes with its normal signalling mechanism. Studies in animals have also shown that fats from fast food slow down the ability to learn new skills.

                  The sixth of the most obvious effects from eating fast food is lacking of fiber is the main reason why junk food consumption is linked to an increased risk of cancers of the digestive system. A study published in European Journal of Cancer Prevention revealed that consuming too much of fast food that are high in sugar and fat can increase your chances of developing colorectal cancer.

                   By the way, fast food is a kind of addictive; you get hooked on to it and continue eating it in an uncontrolled way despite the fact that it is not healthy. The more you consume, the more difficult you will choose the healthy food. Ending a fast food addiction might be difficult but it is not impossible. To begin with, you can successively decrease the frequency of eating junk food and try to eat more homemade foods.


                    Someone said " Those who think they have no time for healthy eating will sooner or later have to find time for illness". However, fast food, although it is convenient and a tasty but it can have serious health and social effects.People should learn to choose fast food carefully and remember the pleasure of eating good food. So, do you think fast foods are still worth eating?

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Reference

Robson, D. (2014, August 26). Is fast food making us depressed? BBC News Future. Retrieved from

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140826-is-fast-food-making-us-depressed

Khan, E. 10 Worst Effects of Fast Food. Wonderslist. Retrieved from  http://www.wonderslist.com/10-worst-effects-of-fast-food/