UM Surabaya Lecturer Describes Types of Junk Food and Their Effects on Health

• 02 Mar
• 2022

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UM Surabaya Lecturer Describes Types of Junk Food and Their Effects on Health

• Article
• By Uswah Sahal
• Health
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Eating fast food or junk food is very popular and favored by some people because junk food tends to be cheap, tasty and filling.

Some examples of popular fast food are French fries, pizza, fried chicken and hamburgers. Then what is junk food and how does it affect health.

Junk food is processed food that is high in calories and low in nutrients. Junk food is also high in added sugar, salt and saturated or trans fats. Some research shows that consuming junk food is as addictive as alcohol and drugs. Even though many people know that this food does not provide health benefits, many people still like it.

Idham Choliq S1 Lecturer in Nursing at the Faculty of Health Sciences (FIK) Muhammadiyah University of Surabaya (UM Surabaya) explained a study showed that consuming junk food more than once a week is associated with a higher risk of obesity, while eating junk food more than twice a week associated with a higher risk of metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, and death from coronary heart disease.

"People need to know that the frequency of consuming junk food will have an impact on health in the future," said Idham Wednesday (2/3/22)

Idham added that Junk food can change a person's metabolism. A healthy young person will experience a bad digestive system after five days of consuming junk food, reducing the ability of muscles to convert glucose into energy.

"In the long term, these changes can lead to insulin resistance and eventually to type 2 diabetes. Another effect of consuming lots of junk food causes constipation," he added again.

According to him, it is difficult for people to avoid the temptation of junk food because so far there has been no strong policy to control food circulating in society and suitable for consumption by the public.

If in the past many of our people died due to lack of food, in this era the high death rate actually consumes a lot of junk food

"I think the choice is ours. If we want to avoid the effects of junk food, start adopting a healthy lifestyle by regularly eating lots of nutritious foods such as vegetables, fruit, nuts, fish, and seeds, which is also balanced by exercising regularly every day," he concluded.