It’s true that consuming high amounts of low-quality foods likely worsens your physical health.
However:
Your physical health only makes up a part of your overall health.
As the graphic below shows, your relationships, sense of meaning and purpose, mental clarity, emotional wellbeing, and surrounding environment round it out.
At PN, we refer to these intersecting aspects of wellbeing as deep health. While certain foods in certain amounts likely harm some aspects of deep health, they may actually improve others.
(If this is confusing, we promise it’ll make more sense in about 30 seconds.)
To understand how this works:
Think of the deep health dimensions as a battery pack.
▶ Some choices and experiences charge some batteries; others drain them.
▶ If you charge more than you drain, you feel great.
▶ If you drain more than you charge, problems happen. Maybe you develop a health issue, struggle to get out of bed, or just feel kind of “blah.”
Too much junk food over time can drain your physical health battery.
Depending on how much you consume, low quality foods might also bring on brain fog and sluggishness, draining your mental battery. And this often leads to feelings of guilt, shame, and frustration, draining your emotional battery too.
HOWEVER… if you move regularly, sleep well, manage your stress, and center the majority of your diet around lean proteins, veggies, fruits and other minimally-processed carbs, and healthy fats, you can keep those physical, mental, and emotional health batteries pretty well powered up.
You can help minimize the negative effects of junk food by maintaining overall good health habits.
But here’s something most people miss: Junk food can actually charge other batteries—assuming you consume it intentionally.
By intentionally, we mean:
You choose to eat the food on purpose (not just because it’s there), with joy and contentment (rather than guilt), in an amount that aligns with your overall health goals, and after weighing and accepting the tradeoffs.
Do all of that and you might see an increase in…
✅ Social health if you consume the food with a friend or loved one
✅ Existential health if that yumminess alights your soul with pleasure—and doesn’t make you feel guilty (cookie dough for the soul, anyone?)
✅ Emotional health if small, intentional indulging helps you feel content, relaxed, and satisfied (rather than deprived and, eventually, resentful)
The result: that ice cream excursion may actually boost overall health (even if it doesn’t directly benefit physical health).