Why junk food can be good for your health
It turns out that eating bad food might end up making you healthier. Here’s how.
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Bad food can be good for your long-term health because eating junk makes people more likely to go for a run, a new study has revealed.
Researchers from Flinders University in Adelaide found young women were more likely to hit the gym if they had eaten food they thought was bad for them.
Health experts gave 100 undergraduate women chocolate and chips or almonds and apricots to eat, and then gave them a choice of either running on a treadmill or playing on an iPad.
Three-quarters of those who ate the chips and chocolate chose to go for a run, compared to just over half of those who had the nuts and fruit.
The healthy and unhealthy snacks had the same amount of calories, sugar and carbohydrates, although the women surveyed perceived the chocolate and chips as much more unhealthy.
Lead author Jasmine Petersen from the SHAPE Research Centre said people appear to think that “an unhealthy behaviour can be compensated by subsequent engagement in a healthy behaviour”.
But there’s little link between what people eat and how long they exercised after.
“Simply engaging in a compensatory behaviour may be sufficient to alleviate any guilt experienced from engaging in an unhealthy behaviour, as opposed to attempting to negate the effects of that unhealthy behaviour,” Ms Petersen said in Appetite journal.
She said it was hard for people to gauge how much effort and energy expenditure is required to compensate for the snack intake.
“While individuals believe it may be possible to balance energy intake and expenditure via compensation, the evidence suggests that the energy balance equation is more complex.”
Rather than balanced on a daily basis, it can take longer to work off unhealthy food, she said.
Melbourne-based personal trainer and director at Indi Active, Brie Reichman said there are two types of people when it came to ‘bad’ foods and exercise.
She said she dealt with people who either “self-sabotage” or were an “energiser bunny” when working off what they ate.
“Personally, working with young females every day I’ve found that they’re more likely to count the day as a complete write-off after eating unhealthy foods,” she said.
“Most feel guilty and are less likely to visit the gym due to the lack of discipline that has occurred.”
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Others, she said, “you would typically find on the treadmill trying to sweat out any sort of guilt from believing they have over indulge or feel the need to.”
But Ms Reichman believes it’s all about balance.
“Building a solid, sustainable, flexible diet is what I am all about! Which certainly includes a cheeky espresso martini on the weekend with the girls.”