What is 'junk food' anyway?

What’s in the word ‘junk food’? What do we associate with the rubbish filled, useless debris that we fill our stomachs with or constantly dream about eating? The way I see it everybody has their own junk and the scale of what’s healthy and what’s rubbish differs significantly in everybody’s mind.

For a health freak, junk food might be an apricot muesli bar with a fine layer of chocolate on top which turns guilt into a 3hour workout at the gym. For a 4 year old boy, junk food is the dreamy desire of ice-cream and chocolate sprinkles at dessert. A teenager might classify a weekly trip to McDonalds as a junk food run but wouldn’t forfeit the Tim Tams and Cheezles in their lunchboxes. An airhostess would proclaim the mush served on Qantas as the worst rubbish you could eat yet secretly enjoy the greasy chicken curry.

But basically, the point is that junk food is all a state of mind. We all have those little treats stashed away that give us a few minutes of joy in our hectic lives. There is no right or wrong about how junky these foods are and it’s up to us when we eat them. So why not treat yourself every-so-often, whether it is every few weeks, days or even hours. I know I’m in the latter and I’m happier for it. Perhaps I’ll also be jollier and wobblier in a few years time, but I’ll come to that then…in the meantime I say enjoy!

by Grace Tobin