They beckon you to come inside and enjoy a happy meal at a reduced rate, show you hoardings of the juiciest hamburgers you ever saw and promise you a meal of fried chicken that’s simply unforgettable. Unless you’re living on Mars or Venus, saying no to fast food is a tough decision indeed. After all, it’s cheap, easily available, fills you up and saves you the hassle of cooking a meal. It’s no wonder then that the younger generation also do not hesitate to flash their credit cards, buy fast food for lunch and then come back for some more. So why are nutritionists advocating healthy home cooked meals and asking you to say a firm no to fast food?

For starters, fast food doesn’t give your body the nutrients it needs to function on an everyday basis like a healthy meal does. Studies conducted to better understand the relation between fast food and obesity showed that people who generally consumed fast food more than two times a week also had more insulin resistance (making them more likely to get diabetes), when compared to other people. The high fat, sugar and sodium content only put you at greater risk of living with clogged arteries, high blood pressure, cholesterol problems and an unhealthy heart. In addition, all this toxic ‘junk’ food begins to get stored as extra reserves of fat in your body which will show, even if you choose not to tuck in your shirt! Such high calorie food also tends to modify the hormones in the body which eventually make you crave for larger quantities of fast food.

Fast food has also been proven to contain larger amounts of trans fats, which increase the level of bad cholesterol in the blood and simultaneously reduce the level of good cholesterol as well. So, if you feel that the damage done to your body after digging into a pack of oily fries, a cheese burger and a carbonated drink will wear off after one taekwondo session, you couldn’t be more wrong. You would have to brisk walk for up to 7 hours at a stretch to burn off all those extra calories. People who ate fast food on a regular basis were also reported to have lesser stamina and usually felt sluggish throughout the day too. Children are easily influenced by colourful advertisements and the eating habits that they pick up when they are young are likely to stay with them for life. It’s not surprising then that many nutritionists agree that fast food alone has contributed enormously to child obesity.

Adopting a healthier lifestyle and making a more conscious effort to eat unprocessed, wholesome and natural foods will reward you in more ways than you can imagine. You’ll find that getting fit and maintaining a good figure is easier when you walk into your favourite fast food joint not more than twice a month.