Junk food rich in fats and deficient in other nutrients is unhealthy.
Junk food is a pejorative term for food containing a large number of calories from sugar or fat with little dietary fiber, protein, vitamins or mineralsThe term can also refer to high protein food like meat prepared with saturated fat.[4] The term HFSS foods (high in fat, salt and sugar) is used synonymously.[5][6] Fast food and fast food restaurants are often equated with junk food, although fast foods cannot be categorically described as junk food.The term junk food dates back at least to the early 1950s.[11]
Concerns about the negative health effects resulting from a junk food-heavy diet, especially obesity, have resulted in public health awareness campaigns, and restrictions on advertising and sale in several countries.
Origin of the term
The term junk food dates back at least to the early 1950s, although it has been reported that it was coined in 1972 by Michael F. Jacobson of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. In 1952, it appeared in a headline in the Lima, Ohio, News, "'Junk Foods' Cause Serious Malnutrition", for a reprint of a 1948 article from the Ogden, Utah, Standard-Examiner, originally headlined, "Dr. Brady’s Health Column: More Junk Than Food". In it, Dr. Brady writes, "What Mrs. H calls 'junk' I call cheat food. That is anything made principally of (1) white flour and or (2) refined white sugar or syrup. For example, white bread, crackers, cake, candy, ice cream soda, chocolate malted, sundaes, sweetened carbonated beverages." The term cheat food can be traced back in newspaper mentions to at least 1916.
Definitions
In Andrew F. Smith's Encyclopedia of Junk Food and Fast Food, junk food is defined as "those commercial products, including candy, bakery goods, ice cream, salty snacks, and soft drinks, which have little or no nutritional value but do have plenty of calories, salt, and fats. While not all fast foods are junk foods, most are. Fast foods are ready-to-eat foods served promptly after ordering. Some fast foods are high in calories and low in nutritional value, while other fast foods, such as salads, may be low in calories and high in nutritional value."[7]
Junk foods have empty calories, i.e. the energy content is not complemented with proteins and lipids required for a nutritious diet.
Foods commonly considered junk foods include salted snack foods, chewing gum, candy, sweet desserts, fried fast food, and sugary carbonated beverages.[17] Many foods such as hamburgers, pizza, and tacos can be considered either healthy or junk food depending on their ingredients and preparation methods.[18] The more highly processed items usually fall under the junk food category,[19] including breakfast cereals that are mostly sugar or high fructose corn syrup and white flour or milled corn.[20]
In the book, Panic Nation: Unpicking the Myths We're Told About Food and Health, it is argued that the junk food label is nutritionally meaningless: food is food, and if there is zero nutritional value, then it isn't a food.[21] Co-editor Vincent Marks explains, "To label a food as 'junk' is just another way of saying, 'I disapprove of it.' There are bad diets - that is, bad mixtures and quantities of food - but there are no 'bad foods' except those that have become bad through contamination or deterioration