Have you ever noticed that no one tells you that never eat you that junk food will affect your brain?
So, today, we will talk about five major impacts of eating junk food in our brain.
1. Junk Food Gets You High :
Our brain has a rewarding system where it encourages activities that we find pleasant such as eating tasty junk food.
So, whenever we eat junk food, the rewarding system activates and releases a chemical called dopamine. This is a powerful chemical that overwhelmed our body and encouraged us to eat more junk food.
Now, as we eat more junk food, our brain releases even more dopamine to pleasure us. But with time, as we eat more junk food, our brain requires more receptors to release dopamine because the previous level doesn’t please us anymore. Hence, we end up becoming an addict and getting high.
2. Junk Food Hijacks Our Attention Span :
So, our brain recognizes that fatty, sugary, fried foods are delicious. Whenever we see them, we are drawn towards them.
A good example of this is young kids who get hungry whenever they go out and see any fast food. Adults don’t face this issue as much as they have the prefrontal cortex, which helps us resist this temptation of eating junk food.
But still, if you are hungry and you see junk food, it hijacks our brain and draws us towards it. We all know how it does end for us.
3. It Inflames Your Mind :
When you eat food that is allergic to your mouth, you inflame. In a similar way, when you eat junk food, it inflames your brain.
Because you like eating it, you can’t stop it even though it is causing you harm. Then this has its side effects on our brain.
One of them is that we become very moody, and mental stability becomes fragile. Some people even fall into depression due to this habit.
Other people develop a condition where there is an increased level of inflammation in the hippocampus due to which they are hungry all the time.
4. It Reduces Our Learning Capabilities :
A new research shows that large intakes of sugar can trigger “brain fog”. Just as the word describes, it is a period of mental confusion and lack of clarity in our minds.
In laymen's terms, sugar causes the production of free radicals in membranes, and this hinders our nerve cells from communicating with each other.
So, if you are sitting in a class, and the teacher is teaching you, your brain would have a tough time understanding the concept due to this brain fog. This period increase as we continue our habit of eating junk food.
5. It Reduces Our Capacity To Reproduce Neurons :
The production of neurons takes place in the hippocampus. As we know that sugar can cause damage to our hippocampus, and this can reduce the growth of new neurons in our brain.
These neurons are essential for our body function, and one of its tasks is to form new memories. So, any reduction in new neurons can distort memories.
This is why people who eat oily food find it hard to store new memories. Over the course of many years, the condition worsens, and it turns into severe mental issues such as depression, initial symptoms of short-term memory loss, and more.
So, as we can see, the effects are far away from normal or even adjustable for the taste that these junk foods provide.
So, if you are addicted to eating such kind of food, we strongly advise you to stop eating them as soon as possible. It won’t be easy at all due to their temptation and release of dopamine.
However, if you make up your mind and develop small hacks to stop this temptation, then your prefrontal cortex will help you overcome this addiction.
However, this won’t happen in a day, and even worse, it can start again at any time in the future if you resume eating junk food. So, quit for good at once for better mental and physical health.