Contents:
- Medical Video: Voices for Healthy Kids: Junk Food Marketing in Schools
- Junk food can affect a child's mental health
- Junk food called 'garbage' because it has no nutritional value
- Junk food trigger additive or addictive behavior
- Junk food make the child hyperactive
- Junk food make children aggressive
Medical Video: Voices for Healthy Kids: Junk Food Marketing in Schools
Various things are given and done by parents so that children can grow and develop well. Therefore, fulfilling nutritional needs and paying attention to the food that children consume is very important. In fact, one study stated that food can affect children's behavior and habits. Moreover, if you often give them unhealthy foods, such as foods that are high in sugar and various kinds of junk food.
What are the effects of junk food on children's health and behavior?
Junk food can affect a child's mental health
Junk food is food that does not have high nutritional value, so it is called junk food and actually makes people who often eat it experience various risks of degenerative diseases. Although many agree that almost all junk food has a good taste and is liked by various groups, do you know what the effect of eating junk food is on your child? It turns out that junk food can make your child's mental and emotional health disturbed.
This statement arises from several research results that have shown that junk food indeed affects mental health. One of the studies was carried out by Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia. In the study it was known that pregnant women who used to eat unhealthy foods tended to have children who experienced mental and emotional disorders.
READ ALSO: Healthy Diet to Maintain Mental Health
Junk food called 'garbage' because it has no nutritional value
Sweet foods are often blamed and are considered to affect a child's behavior. But, do you realize that there are still many other food additives that turn out to be more dangerous for children's mental health? Artificial coloring and preservatives used in food can affect a child in behavior.
A study conducted in 2009 published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition states that foods containing saturated fat, trans fat, or sodium can also affect and change a child's behavior.
READ ALSO: Is It Really Air Pollution Threatening Children's Mental Health?
Junk food trigger additive or addictive behavior
When you give your child sweet, fatty and salty food, it is not impossible that they will ask for it again later. If this continues, it is not impossible for your child to experience 'junk food' addiction. The fact is that simple carbohydrates such as sugar, are related to brain stimulation to produce satisfaction and pleasure.
The results of research conducted in 2013 showed that children who ate junk food enjoyed the taste, texture, and feelings that arise when they eat these foods. The feeling that arises at that time is a pleasant feeling, so it's not surprising that almost all children like sweets and junk food, because these foods make them addicted.
Junk food make the child hyperactive
Many consider that sweet food is one reason why a child cannot control his behavior. Sweet foods can cause an increase in blood sugar levels. This increase in blood sugar levels then causes children to become unable to concentrate properly and lack focus.
READ ALSO: Vitamin D Can Improve Mental Health
Junk food make children aggressive
A study has found that there is a relationship between what a child eats can affect his aggressive nature. In this study, it was said that children who consumed 5 or more cans of soda a day had 9 to 15 percent higher to be aggressive compared to their peers who did not consume that much soda. In this case, soft drinks are thought to cause changes in the chemicals in the brain and hormones that regulate the behavior and mindset of children.
