Junk food facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts

A poster at Camp Pendleton's 21-Area Health Promotion Center shows the effects of junk food that many marines and
sailors eat

Junk food is a term for food containing high levels of calories from sugar and fat with

less protein, vitamins or minerals. The term describes that a particular food has
less nutrition value and contains a lot of fat, sugar, salt and calories. "Junk food" can also
refer to high protein food with large amounts of meat, prepared with, for example, too
much saturated fat. Hamburgers, fried chicken, and candies are examples of junk food.
Most fast food is junk food, and most junk food is fast food.

You asked us, "Why do we love junk food?"

 
A lot of money, strategy and effort goes into designing junk food.
 
The goal is to make it cheap, convenient and -- despite having little to no
nutritional value -- to keep you wanting more.
 
It's typically high in things like salt, sugar and fat, which trigger pleasure
centers in our brains, making us feel oh-so-yummy-good and encouraging us
to keep eating.
 
See, our brains are relatively big and they require a lot of energy to do their
thing. So we evolved to love high-energy food.