Disadvantages of an Unhealthy Diet

By Leslie Whittaker, eHow Contributor

Do you regularly find yourself skipping meals or heading to a drive-thru? With our hectic and demanding schedules, most of us don't devote the time or attention we should to eating right. Your diet is one aspect of your health you can control. Every bite you take matters. Unhealthy eating habits tell your body to react in some very negative and life-threatening ways - ways that might not even be visible until it's too late.

Eating foods that lack essential vitamins, minerals and nutrients is unhealthy. These types of foods also tend to be high in saturated fats, sugar and alcohol. A diet low in protein and high in processed and fried foods, omega 6 fatty-acids and high glycemic carbohydrates negatively impacts your health.

Malnutrition

Whether you're eating too much or not enough, if you're not eating a balance of the right types of foods, you are depleting your body of the essential vitamins and minerals it needs to function optimally. A lack of certain vitamins can cause deficiency diseases like scurvy or rickets. Mineral deficiencies can lead to weak or brittle bones, anemia and an irregular heartbeat. Not only do you need to make sure you're eating enough food throughout the day, but you also need to make sure it's a healthy balance of lean protein, carbohydrates and fats.

Obesity

The most obvious, visible and common result of unhealthy eating is obesity. According to the "Journal of the American Medical Association," about 65 percent of North Americans are overweight. While obesity is visible on the outside, the real concern is what's happening microscopically. When you eat excess amounts of high-glycemic carbohydrates (such as fried foods, chips, cookies and breads), your body begins to produce excess amounts of insulin. Ultimately, this extra insulin tells your body to store fat, speeds up the aging process and is the precursor to insulin resistance in the body. Furthermore, excess insulin not only tells your fat cells to store more fat, it also inhibits the release of stored fat back into the body to be used as energy.

Chronic Disease

As a result of unhealthy eating habits, like eating omega-6 fatty-acids (vegetable oils like corn, soy, sunflower and safflower), your body develops silent inflammation. Unlike inflammation, which causes aches and pains, silent inflammation goes unnoticed in the body until it develops into chronic conditions like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, arthritis and cancer. Silent, low-level inflammation accelerates the development of chronic diseases.

Excessive Weight Loss

For those who frequently miss meals or consume far fewer calories than their bodies need, they may experience excessive weight loss as a result of their unhealthy eating habits. Losing weight through improper nutrition and calorie consumption is not a healthy way, and you'll lose fat instead of muscle. Just because you're losing weight doesn't mean you're healthy. This type of weight loss lowers your metabolism and causes your body to use your muscles and organs for energy.

Accelerated Aging

Food can decrease or accelerate the aging process. There are four main contributors when it comes to aging: free radicals, blood sugar, cortisol and insulin levels, all of which are affected by food. Hormones and cells need to be able to communicate with one another effectively in order to maintain equilibrium in your body. The right balance of hormones slows the aging process, while the wrong balance accelerates it. Unhealthy eating habits, as you can guess, raise your free radical, blood sugar and insulin levels, accelerating the aging process. Thus, unhealthy eating can make you look years older than you really are.

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