junk food

noun

1. food, as potato chips or candy, that is high in calories but of little nutritional value.

2. anything that is attractive and diverting but of negligible substance.

   the junk food offered by daytime television.

junk food

noun

1. food that is low in nutritional value, often highly processed or ready-prepared, and eaten instead of or in addition to well-balanced meals

Other Word Forms

• junk-food adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of junk food¹

An Americanism dating back to 1970–75

Idioms and Phrases

Prepackaged snack food that is high in calories but low in nutritional value; also, anything attractive but negligible in value. For example, Nell loves potato chips and other junk food, or When I'm sick in bed I often resort to TV soap operas and similar junk food. [c. 1970]

Example Sentences

The 21st century Silicon Valley billionaires built vast echo chambers filled with AI slop blurring our perception of reality, and algorithms feeding us the same junk food of political ideology on social media.

Read more on MarketWatch

The meme is a prime example of brain rot, the internet junk food consumed by people of all ages to suck away time, productivity and the living of life.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

If social media is the junk food you’re trying to cut out, budgeting and saving strategies are the fruits and vegetables you’re trying to eat more.

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Lay’s is America’s top-selling brand of potato chips, a category synonymous with junk food.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

"These are a long-overdue first step, but the government is far away from meeting its manifesto commitment to end junk food advertising to kids."

Read more on BBC