Have you ever thought about what happens inside your body and mind after eating something? Probably not unless you’re passionate for this area of work. This is why teenagers need to be aware of what happens inside their mind after they eat fast food. As we all know by now, teenagers are at a crucial period of their growth development mandating our decisions to be wiser. Here is how your brain acts on junk food:
There are two parts of your brain that mainly come into effect; pre-frontal cortex and limbic system. The prefrontal cortex is the last part of your brain to mature, which usually occurs in your early twenties. This part of the brain is what performs decision making and self control functions. Just this fact alone explains a lot as teenagers often act out and make rebellious decisions. Having less self control makes it harder for teenagers to resist those urges to binge on unhealthy foods. Since your brain automatically craves the fattiest, tastiest and sweetest foods, you will always be thinking about that McDonald’s burger you had a day ago, or the bag of gummy’s you ate at lunch. Most teens will eat fast food with a group of friends during lunch at school. I know personally, I hate fast food and always have, although as soon as I started going out for lunch with my friends I slowly started to order small portions of food. Having friends near you can influence your decisions when at a fast food restaurant causing you to over indulge.
A teenagers brain is at the peek level of its sensitivity to the rewards by having lots of receptors for the feel good chemical dopamine. This explaining why we automatically choose those fatty or sugary foods as it gets the biggest kick of dopamine. A repeated dopamine stimulation in your brain results in a long term sweet tooth; meaning once you have matured, your brain will encourage overindulgences to achieve the candy driven dopamine for the rest of your life. Teens need to be careful with how much fast food they consume to prevent this life long sweet tooth. If they aren’t aware of how often they indulge then obesity, heart disease and cardiovascular diseases can be seen in their future. Teenagers often find themselves binge eating a huge order at McDonalds because they are stressed or upset; this is because of the limbic system of your brain. This system controls your emotions and matures prior to the prefrontal cortex. As teenagers, we are full of hormones that can often be negative or stress related causing us to eat fatty and sweet foods as comfort. Like I mentioned before, our bodies want a reward and these ‘comfort’ foods will release dopamine causing you to become happier.
Teens & Fast Food 