Junkfood
Junk food is a derogatory term for food containing a large proportion of ingredients dense in calories and sodium. A diet rich in junk food is the antithesis of a "balanced diet", as suggested in the highly publicized Food Pyramid.
Junk food is relatively cheap to manufacture, is convenient to consume, and has a lot of flavor because of its typically high fat, salt, or sugar content. Its nutritional value is typically very high in calories.
See also: fast food.
Examples
Detrimental Health Effects
Due to the inherent attractiveness of its ingredients to humans, providing junk food to consumers has had no problem becoming a large, world-wide industry. Standard industrial manufacturing and marketing techniques have been successful in increasing consumption of "unbalanced" junk food diets to the extent that many consider it to be a serious health health problem in some countries. It is heavily advertised to young people, who have a naturally high desire for food high in energy content.
Junk food is accused by some to have led to an epidemic of deadly noncommunicable diseases in susceptible populations called New World Syndrome. It is also accused of contributing to the increasing tendency towards obesity and related problems in wealthy nations, especially the United States.
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