Food is especially important for everyone’s health and how nutrients from food are used for overall regulation, body structure, and growth. Most of us have diverse ways of viewing food or how it has been made based on various cultures, beliefs, and lifestyles. When it comes to how one may eat throughout the day, it may be a process due to it needing certain preparations.  

For an exceptionally long time now, fast food restaurants have been the staple for something “quick to eat” or just a meal “on the go.” Certain circumstances/reasons have led to most people making purchases at fast food restaurants, such as a busy work schedule (work/school), more convenience in terms of time and price, advertisements being entertaining and eye-catching, or just people enjoying fast food and having a preference.  

What you eat says a lot about your health, but what you eat specifically is what matters. Even though fast food is everyone is go-to, over time it can also cause some health conditions and affect your stamina.  

My experience with fast food or consuming processed foods for a certain time did impact my health negatively, but it ended up teaching me so much about how the body reacts when it receives said material. My journey with understanding what it was to be healthy, came with a lot of confusion and complications. At the beginning of that process, I constantly questioned how I constantly felt emotionally and physically. There were times when I felt unmotivated, tired, often sad, had digestive issues, had negative thoughts, my skin broke out all the time, body aches lost my confidence, my self-esteem dropped, and I felt discouraged with everything surrounding me.  

It did not take till this experience, for me to realize that these symptoms were caused by my body filling up with certain ingredients, toxins, and bacteria found in certain food that my body could not break down or digest.  

This experience started with me heading home from campus on October 7th, 2021, feeling out of it. I did not feel aware of my surroundings and quickly started to forget what I did throughout the day. This feeling continued for the next few days, but I brushed it off and did not think much of it. Until it got to the point of me not recognizing my family and feeling out of touch with reality. This feeling scared me because I had never felt anything like that before, but I continued to leave it alone cause at the time I knew it was sometimes normal to feel off. As time passed, that feeling slowly went away, but things got worse and more confusing. It then got to a point where I could nott sleep at night but felt exhausted during the day. At night, I felt as if my brain was still awake even though I physically felt tired. I often fell asleep on the bus to school, during class, and randomly throughout the day. After this, I felt confused about why I felt this way but did not know at the time it was due to the toxins found in processed foods that were building up in my stomach, which then affected the brain. When the gut is not properly taken care of, it causes a lot of complications throughout the body. In my case, since there was a build-up of terrible things in my system it impacted my way of thinking and my sleep.  

You may be wondering what the gut has to do with brain health and most people do not know this, but the gut is also known as the “second brain.” The gut helps the brain function at its best by producing neurotransmitters and signals that get sent to the brain. In terms of experience, my gut was not functioning properly which then affected my brain mobility cause my body was not making the neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin to help me sleep and think straight. Based on this feeling, I learned how everything is connected in some way. Fast food/processed foods affected me causing physical and emotional symptoms caused by the imbalance internally. This caused me to feel out of place and hopeless with how I felt but after this experience, I know that what you eat 100% affects how you feel.  

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/gut-brain-connection 

But for people who want to make healthier choices, have balance, and feel their best. It is best to lower their consumption of fast food and/or processed foods. Some ways that can help are by drinking more water, meal prepping, increase physical activity by going on walks, try to cook more at home, limit fast food consumption to at least once a week, understanding what you need versus what you want, having a s a set schedule/routine so everything is planned accordingly based on when it is time to eat and relax and when you must get stuff done.