High TV usage linked to increased junk food consumption

The research, conducted by Prof. Temple Northup of the Jack J. Valenti School of Communication at the University of Houston, TX, is published in The International Journal of Communication and Health.

50. Say (O Muhammad ): "I don't tell you that with me are the treasures of Allah, nor (that) I know the unseen; nor I tell you that I am an angel. I but follow what is revealed to me by inspiration." Say: "Are the blind and the one who sees equal? will you not then take thought?"

51. And warn therewith (the Qur'an) those who fear that they will be gathered before their Lord, when there will be neither a protector nor an intercessor for them besides Him, so that they may fear Allah and keep their duty to Him (by abstaining from committing sins and by doing all kinds of good deeds which He has ordained).

52. And turn not away those who invoke their Lord, morning and afternoon seeking His Face. You are accountable for them in nothing, and they are accountable for you in nothing, that you may turn them away, and thus become of the Zalimun (unjust).

53. Thus We have tried some of them with others, that they might say: "Is it these (poor believers) that Allah has favoured from amongst us?" Does not Allah know best those who are grateful? 6. Surah Al-An'am (The Cattle)

This is not the first study to associate TV use with unhealthy eating. A 2014 study published in the journal Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism, for example, linked television viewing time to unhealthy dietary patterns among children aged 9-11.

In that study and others reporting similar findings, researchers say the results may be explained by the fact that TV watching is a sedentary activity, and that this encourages unhealthy eating.

But in his study, Prof. Northup sought to determine the psychological explanations for the link between TV use and increasing consumption of unhealthy foods.

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"There was very little prior research on the psychological reasons this relationship might exist beyond that it's a sedentary activity that encourages snacking," he says. "I wanted to investigate underlying psychological reasons that this relationship might exist."

To reach his findings, Prof. Northup conducted a cross-sectional survey on 591 participants of an average age of 22.

The survey was designed to gather information on participants' overall television and news media usage and their nutritional knowledge. In addition, Prof. Northup assessed their "fatalistic views" toward eating healthily, which he told Medical News Today is "a general viewpoint that measures the extent to which you think you understand proper nutrition."

High TV usage linked to poorer knowledge and more fatalistic views of nutrition

Overall, the results of the survey revealed that the more time participants spent watching TV, the more likely they were to have an unhealthy diet.

What is more, those who watched more TV had a poorer understanding of nutrition and a more fatalistic view toward healthy eating, compared with participants who watched less TV. "In turn, those two items predicted snacking behaviors," says Prof. Northup.

He believes the lack of nutritional knowledge among people who watch more TV may be explained by increased exposure to advertising of unhealthy foods.

"Within advertising, most foods are nutritionally deficient, while entertainment programming depicts characters frequently snacking on unhealthy foods and rarely eating a balanced meal," he explains. "If these are the messages, those who watch a lot of them may become less able to determine what is healthy."

He notes that, interestingly, participants who watched a lot of television news but not a lot of television overall had better nutritional knowledge than those who watched more general TV. Prof. Northup told MNT that this may be because news media "typically focus their stories on trending topics - like what diet is best or what foods are healthy or unhealthy - rather than a broader context of healthy living."

Viewers presented with conflicting messages about food

On considering the association between high TV usage and more fatalistic views toward nutrition, Prof. Northup says the link is not surprising given that viewers are presented with conflicting messages about food.

"After all, on the one hand, heavy users are told to eat a lot of sugary drinks and snacks, while on the other, they are told to avoid those snacks in favor of a variety of other foods," he explains. "If all messages being presented conflict, it becomes hard to decipher exactly what should be followed. This could lead to the belief that it is just not possible to fully understand nutrition."

Obesity is a major problem in the US. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than a third of adults in the US are obese, while the rate of obesity among children and adolescents has quadrupled over the past 30 years.

Prof. Northup says his study results suggest the media is contributing to obesity:

"Based on these results, the media may be one piece of the obesity problem by sending messages to consumers that create fatalistic attitudes toward eating healthy as well as lowering overall nutritional knowledge.

These two variables in turn contribute to poor nutritional eating - a well-established cause of obesity."

But there is something we can do that may stop us reaching for the junk food while watching TV: reduce the amount of unhealthy snacks in the house.

"If you know you're prone to eating while watching TV, then it would be best to not have a lot of snacks like chips in the house, and instead have things like carrot sticks," Prof. Northup toldMNT.

Obesity may not be the only problem mediated by high TV usage. Last year, MNT reported on a study claiming the more time infants and younger children spend watching TV, the less time they spend asleep.

Not long ago, the great processed-food companies like Kraft and Kellogg's towered over the US food landscape like the high hat that adorned the head of Chef Boyardee, the iconic canned-spaghetti magnate whose empire is now owned by ConAgra.

But now, Big Food has fallen on hard times. Conagra, which owns Hunts, Reddi Whip, Ro-Tell, Swiss Miss, and Orville Redenbacher along with Chef Boyardee, recently slashed its 2015 profit projections and sacked its CEO. Kraft—purveyor of Oscar Mayer deli meats, Jello, Maxwell House coffee, and Velveeta cheese—also recently shook up top management and reported sluggish sales in 2014. Cereal titan Kellogg's has seen its sales plunge 5.4 percent over the past year, Ad Age reports.

There's a "mounting distrust of so-called Big Food, the large food companies and legacy brands on which millions of consumers have relied on for so long," said Campbell Soup's CEO.

What gives? Part of the problem is currency fluctuations. Having conquered the US market, Big Food for years has looked overseas for growth. Recently, a strong US dollar has cut into foreign profits, because a pricier dollar makes overseas sales worth less when they're converted to the US currency, as The Wall Street Journal recently reported.

Currencies rise and fall, but the real specter haunting the industry may be something less ephemeral than the dollar's gyrations. Campbell Soup CEO Denise Morrison—whose company makes V-8 juice and Pepperidge Farm baked goods along with soup—recently publicly declared that there's a "mounting distrust of so-called Big Food, the large food companies and legacy brands on which millions of consumers have relied ... for so long," reports Fortune's Phil Wahba, in an account from a conference at which Morrison spoke. Morrison also cited the "increasingly complex public dialog when it comes to food" as a drag on Campbell Soup's and its competitors' sales, Wahba reports.

In other words, Big Food successfully sold a vision of cooking as a necessary inconvenience, to be dispatched with as painlessly as possible—open a soup can for dinner, unleash a squirt of artificial cream onto a boxed cake for dessert—that's starting to lose its charm.

One reason is surely health. Over the past decade, there has been a bounty of research on the ill effects of highly processed food. And when Yale medical researchers David Katz and Samuel Meller surveyed the scientific dietary literature for a paper in 2013, they found that a "diet of minimally processed foods close to nature, predominantly plants, is decisively associated with health promotion and disease prevention."

Interestingly, Katz and Meller found that as long as you stick to the "minimally processed" bit, it doesn't much matter which diet you follow: low-fat, vegetarian, and Mediterranean have all shown good results. Even the meat-centered "paleo" approach does okay. The authors conclude the "aggregation of evidence" supports meat eating, as long as the "animal foods are themselves the products, directly or ultimately, of pure plant foods—the composition of animal flesh and milk is as much influenced by diet as we are." That's likely because cows fed on grass deliver meat and milk with a healthier fat profile than their industrially raised peers.

Meanwhile, as Big Food flounders, sales of fresh food grown by nearby farmers continues to grow at a pace that would make a Big Food exec salivate. A recent US Department of Agriculture report found that there are now 8,268 farmers markets nationwide—a jump of 180 percent since 2006. Then there are regional food hubs, which the USDA describes as "enterprises that aggregate locally sourced food to meet wholesale, retail, institutional, and even individual demand"—the kind of operations that can move fresh food from local farms to, say, grocery stores, so you don't have to show up at the exact right time at the farmers market to get your local collard greens. Food hubs, the USDA reports, have jumped in number by 280 percent since 2007.

Finally, there are schools—a site long dominated by Big Food, where little consumers learn eating habits before they emerge into the world as income-earning adults. According to the USDA, school districts with farm-to-school programs grew by more than 400 percent between 2007 and 2012.

For decades, "American cuisine" was an oxymoron, the punch line to a sad joke. Billions of dollars in profits have been made betting on the US appetite for processed junk. Those days may be drawing to an end.

I was chatting with a father on the sidelines of a game the other day. He told me he doesn’t believe that food impacts health because he grew up eating bologna sandwiches and Fritos on white bread with a Twinkie for dessert. He’s healthy after a childhood of junk food, he said, so his kids will be, too.

This is not the first time I have heard this argument.

Yes, it is true that perhaps this particular parent is healthy. Yet, as a generation, we are not.

Over the past 50 years, many medical advances have made it easier for people to survive heart attacks, treat high blood pressure and manage elevated cholesterol. We have surgeries, medicines and treatments that once weren’t available. Sounds good, doesn’t it? So why do Americans have a shorter life expectancy than people in most high-income countries?

If you don’t believe that our generation is getting sicker instead of healthier, check out what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization have to say:

· About half of American adults have at least one chronic condition. One in four adults has two or more. Yet chronic diseases are among the most preventable of all health problems. Chronic conditions include heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, obesity and arthritis.

· Diabetes affects 1 in 5 adults and is the most common cause of disability in America. Fifteen years ago, Type 2 diabetes, once known as adult-onset diabetes, accounted for less than 3 percent of all new cases of childhood diabetes, yet today it accounts for up to 45 percent.

· The rates of obesity for U.S. adults and children have more than doubled since the 1960s.  Most of the increase in obesity in adults has occurred since the 1980s.

· National Health Interview Survey data from 2010 to 2012 estimated 52.5 million adults had arthritis, for which obesity is a known risk factor. And that number is expected to grow.

In 2013, the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council brought an alarming report to the Senate floor. It noted that although U.S. life expectancy and survival rates have improved over the past century, “Americans live shorter lives and experience more injuries and illnesses than people in other high-income countries.” And over the past three decades, this difference in life expectancy has been growing.

You might be thinking, “This is someone else’s problem” — someone who is fatter than you, spends more time at the doctor than you, or someone with fewer resources than you. But unfortunately, this is everyone’s problem.

“The American health-wealth paradox is a pervasive disadvantage that affects everyone, and it has not been improving,” the report’s authors write. The study, “U.S. Health in International Perspective: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health,” found that the health gap is more pronounced among socioeconomically disadvantaged groups, but white, insured, college-educated and upper-income Americans were still in worse health than similar groups in peer countries.

Why is this happening? The answer is not as simple as Twinkies. Of course what we eat is a contributor, but there are many other possible factors.

· Our generation of adults is the first to be raised with technology including video games, TVs and computers, which leads to a much more sedentary life.

· People spend less time outside. They drive more. A playground or park was once a typical meeting place; now it is the Starbucks, where many sugar-laden foods are sold and people sit to connect.

· This generation of adults is the first to be raised with fast food on every corner. Fast-food sales increased from $6 billion in 1970 to $110 billion in 2000, Eric Schlosser writes in his book “Fast Food Nation.”

· Foods in BPA-lined cans and chemical-filled frozen dinners became easily accessible.

· Per-person consumption of synthetic food dyes has increased fivefold since 1955.

The bad news for our kids is that all the factors above still apply, plus morechemicals in our air, more pesticides in our crops and more antibiotics in our meat.

So parents, let’s face the facts. Yes, we may have eaten loads of processed food growing up. But we know more than our parents did. Our planet is probably more toxic. Our kids are more sedentary. And there is proof that as a generation we are not as healthy as we may think.

So even if your children do not have diabetes, severe food allergies or another obvious sign of being affected by their food and environment, do we really want them to be part of the potentially sickest generation? Our children can’t protect themselves from the environment in which they live or the foods they are fed. We can. And because we all love our children, this is not someone else’s problem to solve; it unmistakably is ours.

We all know pizza, doughnuts and cupcakes shouldn’t be a big part of a healthy diet, and these foods are generally considered more fattening than nutritious whole foods like meat and vegetables. But why is that? If you ask a dozen people on the street, you’ll likely get a variety of answers. Some will probably tell you that it’s all about the sugar, others will point out the low fiber content, and some will say the primary problem is that these foods are very high in calories.

However, if you ask someone specifically why large amounts of high fructose corn syrup or sucrose are so fattening, how a low intake of dietary fiber can promote obesity and disease, or why calorie density matters, most people will probably come up blank. Because that’s the thing—we all know that “junk food” is unhealthy and fattening, but many of us find it difficult to explain the actual mechanisms. I think if more people knew how highly processed food affects the body, healthy-eating patterns would increase in popularity.

Before we begin, let’s start with a quick definition of what junk food really is:

“Junk food is a derisive slang term for food that is of little nutritional value and often high in fat, sugar, salt and calories. It is widely believed that the term was coined in 1972 by Michael Jacobson, director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. Junk foods typically contain high levels of calories from sugar or fat, with little protein, vitamins or minerals. Foods commonly considered junk foods include salted snack foods, gum, candy, sweet desserts, fried fast food, and sugary carbonated beverages. Many foods such as hamburgers, pizza and tacos can be considered either healthy or junk food depending on their ingredients and preparation methods.” (1)

As most Paleo advocates would agree, the evolutionary outlook is the natural starting place when we want to understand nutrition and health, as it helps us answer questions such as: What is normal for our species? What types of foods are we best adapted to eat? What types of foods are available to humans in the wild and in an ancestral, natural environment? How have modern processing techniques changed our food?

With this evolutionary framework as the foundation, let’s get to the problems with modern junk food…

1. Junk foods are extremely palatable and have a very high reward value.

Imagine driving home after a long day at work. You know the fridge and pantry at home are packed with meat, vegetables, fruits and healthy oils, but somehow it seems so much more tempting to stop at one of the many fast food joints conveniently placed along the road. Not necessarily because you’re that hungry—more because the taste of something juicy, salty and fatty seems so appealing right now. If you’ve become accustomed to eating a healthy diet, this need for something quick and tasty on the way home from work is probably not very pronounced—but if your dietary regimen is relatively loose, chances are today’s dinner ends up being burgers and fries instead of grass-fed beef and zucchini.

But why are we so drawn to these modern food products? The convenience aspect and a “lack of discipline” certainly play a role, but that’s not all. Hamburgers, doughnuts and cookies have a supramaximal reward value compared to anything you’d find naturally in the wild, and for some, the hyper-rewarding combination of starch, salt, sugar, glutamate and refined fat causes their “Stone Age” bodies to essentially become addicted to fast food (2-4).

Fast food is designed to be very palatable. Of course, we all want to eat good food, but the problem is that highly processed foods are too good. Modern food-processing techniques have allowed us to combine several different ingredients to create food products very different from anything we would have had access to in an ancestral environment.

Our ancient hardwired mechanism to seek out foods that are safe and high in calories are working against us in today’s toxic food environment, and the energy homeostasis system goes into a tailspin when we have constant access to highly rewarding and palatable food (2-4).

2. Junk foods usually have a very high calorie density.

With a few exceptions (e.g., honey), most junk foods are extremely calorie dense compared to “natural,” whole foods. This doesn’t really come as a surprise, as the foods you can get at most fast food joints have all the characteristics of calorie-dense food items. Most importantly, they are low in fiber and water and high in sugar, starch and refined fat. Is calorie density a good indicator of the healthfulness and fattening effect of food? Not necessarily. We know that some of the healthiest foods on the planet, such as certain types of organ meats, are relatively calorie dense. However, fatty animal meats are clearly in a very different category than the ones you’ll find at McDonald’s or Burger King.

One of the problems with eating foods that are very high in calories is that they tend to have a low satiety index score, meaning that they aren’t especially filling per calorie. Getting 550 kilocalories at McDonald’s is a quick and easy task (one Big Mac) compared to getting the same amount of energy from more filling foods like fruits, vegetables and meats.

3. Junk food is often low in protein.

Of all the macronutrients, protein has the most potent effect on satiety and thermogenesis, and there is now convincing evidence that protein intake has a significant impact on total calorie intake (5). What this means is that when you eat a diet with a very low percentage of protein, you tend to consume more total calories than you would on a diet with an adequate level of protein (5). Clearly, not all of the highly processed foods we eat in today’s society are lacking in protein, but when we look at the diet as a whole, the protein intake of roughly 15 percent in the Western diet is very low compared to the intake of 19–35 percent in ancestral diets (6, 7).

This mismatch makes perfect sense when we look at the difference between the ancestral and modern food environments. In an ancestral environment, optimal foraging strategy entails that animal source foods are often prioritized, while in the modern world, a grain-based diet is the norm, and calorie-dense foods rich in refined fat, refined grains and sugar are cheap and easily accessible. Is the average doughnut-eating American compensating for a low percentage of protein in the diet by eating more total calories? Probably, yes.

4. Junk food has an unnatural nutrient composition.

You won’t find any foods in nature with a nutrient composition even closely resembling that of chocolate bars, cupcakes or Big Macs. Although clearly not identical, a common theme is that junk foods are low in protein (as mentioned), fiber, micronutrients and water, and high in starch, salt, sugar and refined fat. This combination is absolutely devastating, both to our waistline and general health.

Some of the implications of this Westernized configuration include alterations of the gut microbiota (which will have systemic effects on metabolism, immunity and overall health), decreased insulin sensitivity, decreased leptin sensitivity, and a gene expression pattern that results in a suboptimal phenotype (8–10). This orchestra will promote fat accumulation and poor health.

5. Junk food has a low satiety index score.

All of the things we’ve discussed, such as low protein content, poor micronutrient profile, and high sugar content, help explain why highly processed products score so poorly on the satiety index (11). Basically, they don’t fill us up as well as do nutritious, whole foods. This difference in satiety value can help explain why people who adopt an ancestral diet tend to eat fewer total calories per day (8, 12).

Just imagine the difference between someone who’s eating fruits, seafood, meat and vegetables for most meals and a person who favors calorie-dense prepackaged meals and convenience foods. The whole-foods diet consists of foods that are much more satiating per calorie, and in combination with all of the previously mentioned benefits of eating a whole-foods diet, this leads to a lower total calorie intake for the healthy dieter.

Takeaways

One argument some people make is that dietary choices don’t really matter much, and that body-fat regulation is all about calories in vs. calories out. However, as most people with some understanding of nutrition will tell you, this is a way-too-simplistic perspective on diet and obesity. To really understand why highly processed foods are problematic, we have to expand our scope beyond just calories and look at how junk food affects the human body in a way that can trigger us to eat more and burn fewer calories.

Dairy products, cereal grains, refined sugars, refined vegetable oils, and alcohol contributed little or none of the energy in Paleolithic diets, but today they make up 70 percent of the total daily energy consumed in the U.S. (8). Often, these types of foods are combined to produce modern, highly processed foods such as chocolate cake, doughnuts and pizza, which have several unfavorable characteristics that make them especially unfit for human consumption.

That’s not to say you should never eat a slice of pizza or enjoy some a freshly baked cake, but as we all know, making these foods a major part of your diet isn’t a good idea if your goal is to achieve a lean and healthy body. The elements discussed in this article can explain why we react differently to fast food than we do to nutritious, whole foods, why we are so drawn to cupcakes, pizza and sugar-laden drinks, and why it’s so easy to gain weight on a Western diet.