Don’t make junk food your daily diet

‘Eating to live’ and ‘living to eat’ are two ends of the food consumption spectrum. A healthy eating habit will keep many chronic diseases at bay, advises Dr N Prabhudev

Nutrition, when achieved right, can create more health than all the pills and procedures combined. Junk food as a habit is tasty poison and plays havoc in your life, slowly, but surely. The problem of poor nutrition is deeper, more serious, and more pervasive than imagined.

The decrease in life span due to junk food is shocking but rarely discussed. 500 million people are clinically obese, with body-mass indices greater than 30, while 1.40 billion are clinically overweight, with BMIs greater than 25. Approximately 75 per cent of healthcare spending goes toward treating poor nutrient diet induced preventable chronic diseases - obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, iron-deficiency anaemia and high blood pressure.

WHO reports 2.80 million people die annually from conditions linked to overweight and obesity, such as coronary heart disease, ischemic brain stroke and diabetes. It estimates an average of two million deaths per annum through wars and famine put together – 40 per cent less than that caused by eating junk food.

The World Obesity Federation predicts more than 27 million children in India may suffer from obesity by 2030. Obesity has been declared an epidemic. Overweight and obesity lead to cardiac complications and are mediated through metabolic syndrome. Junk food is killing more people than smoking. Tobacco causes over eight million deaths in a given year. Eating junk food causes 11 million deaths only due to high blood pressure related complications. It kills more people prematurely - in their 40s and 50s - than even tobacco.

Excessive amounts of animal products lead to premature aging and chronic diseases. Heart attacks, strokes, cancer, obesity, autism, allergies, and autoimmune diseases all have the same root cause – addiction to toxic ingredients. Heart disease is promoted by saturated fat, refined carbohydrates, white rice, white bread, sugar, honey amd maple syrup.

Fifty excess calories per day, over and above your basic metabolic needs, over a 10-year period, adds 50 pounds of extra body weight. The excess weight increases the risk of multiple chronic illnesses, cancers, and takes away many years of life. On the other hand, with 50 to 100 calories lesser a day, the weight remains the same, and you stay slim and healthy. This results in slowing of the aging process, freedom from chronic diseases and dramatic increase lifespan.

Those eating processed foods daily end up having seven times the risk of early-life stroke. It doubles the risk of heart attacks, doubles the risk of diabetes, and the risk of renal failure. A vast majority of heart attacks and strokes can be prevented if people adopt a healthy lifestyle.

Junk foods lack nutrients, vitamins and minerals. They are high in energy, salts, sugars and fats. This releases a brain chemical called Dopamine. It floods the brain with pleasure and makes you crave for more junk food.

(The author is Former Director, Sri Jayadeva Institute of Cardiology)

Healthy vegetarian food

Highlights - Eat healthy
‘Eat to live’ is a biological need. Balanced eating is based on physical (what you eat nourishes your body) and emotional (what you eat gives you pleasure) aspects. You alone can control what you eat. Many eat beyond their basic survival need. While foods can make you happy, over-indulgence will lead to several chronic diseases.