Processing techniques such as drying, milling, artificially preserving, coloring, texturizing, and softening, freezing, baking, heating and prolonged storage are not only causing obesity, but it is also causing malnutrition.  These are just a few techniques that deplete fast food and processed foods of life supporting essential nutrients. 

THE national addiction to junk food is leaving millions malnourished with some developing problems more usually associated with African famine victims.

The number of hospital patients diagnosed with malnutrition has risen by 44 per cent in five years, with almost 4,000 cases last year, alarming research shows.

Doctors warned of the danger of assuming that obesity was the only possible consequence of a fast-food diet, high in fat and sugar and low in vitamins and minerals.

'Malnourishment is going to make you more vulnerable to illnesses and less able to cope with them.' Dr Alistair McKinlay, an Aberdeen University gastroenterologist and a leading authority on malnutrition, said the problem remained unidentified in 75 per cent of cases, and stressed: 'If you are young and well, you can still end up malnourished.'