Healthy vs Junk Food For Teenagers

I’m sitting at my desk, eating a bag of Doritos. I don’t usually eat Doritos but I have a healthy vs junk food dilemma. I love the salty crunch, but I will feel sluggish, tired, and without energy later.

Have you ever noticed that after you eat lunch, all you feel like doing is taking a nap? Or maybe after eating cereal for breakfast or maybe a piece of toast, you want to head straight back to your bed? And if you just skipped breakfast altogether, you feel tired?

This article will discuss the dilemma of healthy vs junk food. We will also discover how healthy eating can help, what foods are good or bad for your body, and easy ways to change.

My View Of Healthy Vs Junk Food

I know from my experience that I feel very tired, and my brain just can’t focus on school when I eat junk food. I just sit, trying to do homework, and I zone out, or my brain is just all over the place with everything except my school.

But eating properly and getting good food for my body makes a big difference. I focus so easily, and my brain comprehends it well. I am not tired even after a big workout. I feel ready to conquer the world and see that following the healthy vs junk food suggestions is important.

Later, we will see how even small changes make a difference. But sadly, the debate about healthy vs. junk food is a big problem nowadays simply because people don’t know and aren’t taught the benefits of eating healthy vs. junk food.

Why Healthy Eating?

Waking up feeling energized and with a clear mind is possible. Eating healthy food like nuts, fruits, vegetables, meats, and correct oils like avocado oil, olive oil, and carbs is a good way to accomplish this.

When you eat food, it takes energy to digest it. The more energy it takes to digest food, the harder it is on your body. When it comes to healthy vs junk food, many foods are hard for your body to process, but one is GMO foods.

GMO foods, especially artificial sweeteners, contain chemicals that are toxic to your body. They cause headaches and seizures and are linked to brain cancer, MS, sudden drops in blood pressure, and damage to the retina of the eye. As you can see, the small changes in healthy vs junk food can make a big difference in everyone’s lives.

Instead of all those processed foods, find non-GMO foods to accompany your healthy vs junk food diet. This includes non-GMO cereals, crackers, ketchup, fruits and vegetables (this is a big one), bread, and everything else.

Now, I have a quick story about healthy vs. junk food. It is about myself.

So, my family and I were going on a trip to Utah. We stayed there for a week, skiing and doing a lot of fun stuff.

While I was on vacation, sometimes, I didn’t want to eat healthily, or it was hard to find the right foods. So, I ate poorly for a few days while we were on a trip or when I was very busy.

I definitely slacked a little on the healthy eating side. I usually eat salads daily, but I didn’t feel like it this time. Now I still ate somewhat healthy, but not like I usually do.

We would get little treats in the morning, and I would just eat like a parfait. That didn’t start the day well with just some yogurt and granola.

Then, I would eat a sandwich and get something like soup for lunch. It wasn’t necessarily bad, but it had too much artificial stuff, and the bread wasn’t good for me at all.

Then I would end up having a small treat, something like chocolate because I am a sucker for chocolate, or maybe a cookie. I’m not going to lie. Even though I tried to follow the healthy vs junk food diet, I cheated a little bit. There was one time my family got a milkshake to split. It was so good, though.

With all of this, I definitely noticed a difference in how I normally feel. I was far more tired than usual and didn’t have as much energy to have fun. I’m a morning person and had trouble waking up in the mornings after eating unhealthily. I noticed my patience was much thinner, and I felt off.

But when I returned home and started eating properly, I felt much better. I had much more energy, woke up early, and felt good; I definitely had more patience, which I needed as a teenager, and felt one hundred percent better again. This shows a lot in the healthy vs. junk food issue.

Bad Foods That Slow Your Body

• All seed oils – Canola oil, sunflower, grape seed, soybean, etc
• Processed foods – anything packaged
• Refined sugar – white sugar, coconut sugar, agave, etc
• Fried foods – chicken nuggets, chicken tenders, fish bites, mozzarella sticks, etc
• Artificial sweeteners – Equal, Nutrasweet, Splenda, Aspartame, etc.
• Soft drinks – Coke, Diet Coke, Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, Root beer, etc
• Energy drinks – Prime, Gatorade, Monster, Celsius, etc.

Our healthy vs junk food debate reveals that bad carbs, sugar, seed oils like canola oil, and salt are hard on your body, and after they’re processed, they don’t benefit it in any way.

Seed oils create abnormal red blood cells, which may cause cancer, depress the immune system, and impair growth. These oils are also in most foods nowadays; in many, they are the chief cause of diabetes.

Good Foods As An Alternatives To Junk Food

The good news is there are good alternatives to bad foods. Here are some alternatives for healthy vs junk food to use on the healthy side.

• Avocado oil, coconut oil, REAL butter, Extra virgin olive oil
• Raw honey and maple syrup
• Add some fruit to your drinks to add some flavor
• Kombucha, it’s a fermented beverage
• Regular meats (NOT pork)
• Some Teas

These small alternatives make a difference—or you can just avoid bad foods. Remember that this is not a very deep dive into the healthy vs. junk food debate; it’s just an overview.

As I move forward, I will write more in-depth information on why bad foods can harm you and what they will cause.

Easy Changes For Healthy vs Junk Food

As you can clearly tell, even small changes can have a big impact. I didn’t eat much bad food but wasn’t getting all the good nutrients I needed in my healthy vs junk food diet. It would have been much worse if I had eaten stuff like chips, sodas, candies, chocolate, cookies, juices, etc.

Instead of eating commercial yogurt, get raw Yogurt. The sugars and artificial flavors in commercial yogurts are very bad for you, while raw yogurt has very good nutrients and is very healthy.

My Favorite

My personal favorite alternative is kale chips. (When they are cooked correctly.) I cut up a bunch of kale, put it on a cooking sheet, pour olive oil on it, add salt, put it in the oven for a bit, and OH MY GOODNESS, it tastes amazing. They come out crispy, salty, and warm, and I am snacking on them for the rest of the night!!!

Bonus – Kale Chips Recipe

Instructions:

• Turn oven on to 300 degrees
• Cut the kale into bite-size pieces
• Put it in a baggie
• Add a small amount of olive oil to lightly coat
• Toss it around in the baggie
• Remove from the bag and lay it out on a baking sheet in a single layer
• Bake until crispy for 10-15 minutes.

Please enjoy this bonus recipe; it is really scrumptious.

FAQs For Healthy Vs Junk Food

I compiled three frequently asked questions regarding healthy vs junk food for your convenience.

What is the number 1 unhealthiest food

Fried foods and foods with added sugars, like bacon and Snickers, are good examples of two of the unhealthiest foods.

What are the 3 foods to quit?

Three of the worst foods are cereal like Post Oreo Os, processed foods like hot dogs, and frozen processed meals like pizza rolls.

Conclusion

Now that we know the benefits of healthy vs junk food it will be easier to choose good foods as an alternative. So, the next time you feel sluggish and tired, look at our list of good foods to help you.