Men's fertility irreversibly damaged by age of 18 thanks Western junk food diet
telegraph.co.uk
telegraph.co.uk
It's well established that high body fat percentage is correlated with lower sex hormone production. Among other factors, this could be due to decreased bloodflow to the genitals.
It's not unreasonable to think maybe the people eating the junk food were simply fatter.
Another concern is whether they're getting adequate nutrients from other foods. There's a bit of substitution going on when a higher percentage of calories coming from junk food, but it's completely possible to eat McDonald's for lunch every day and still get 100% of your recommended vitamins, minerals and fiber from other meals.
This is just poor reporting.
> diet, semen quality, reproductive hormones, and lifestyle factors
So it doesn't look like body fat or weight was factored in, unless they were lumped under "lifestyle factors" for some reason.
It should also be noted that they're confounding "Western" and "high fat". High fat diets are actually great for hormone production: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4271636/
You're probably right that it's highly related to body fat. But I would suggest it's also highly correlated to sugar (particularly fructose) intake as well as other simple starches. There was a controlled study reported just the other day that showed that even maintaining a given weight, macro nutrient changes can dramatically effect metabolic syndrome and related issues.
From the responses to a dietary questionnaire, four types of diet were identified: a “Western” diet characterised by red meat, processed meat, fatty and sugary food and drink; a “prudent” diet comprising mainly chicken, fish, vegetables and fruit; a “Smørrebrød” diet cold processed meats, whole grains, mayonnaise, cold fish, condiments, and dairy; and a traditional vegetarian diet, involving lots of vegetables, soya milk and eggs.
Sperm health, as measured by concentration, volume and motility, was best in those following the prudent diet, followed by the vegetarian and then Smørrebrød diets, with those adhering to a western diet yielding the worse readings.
I guess if a group wants to reduce population of developing countries, they can develop ultra cheap fast food, fast food subsidies and fast influencers who manipulate a large part of population into eating fast food and we save the planet? Just food for thoughts. Fast food VCs rescue planet from overpopulation.
Developed countries are already shrinking in population, that's why I specifically talk about developing countries.
The Gates Foundation is funding more education which tends to lead toward women and men setting career goals, potentially relocating, and thereby delaying childbearing to a later time. The primary exceptions here in developed countries are pretty much entirely religious (see: Duggars, most of Utah...).
Commercially produced fast food is also more expensive than cooking at home in developing countries because their marginal utility of labor is so low (much cheaper to cook at home and spend the time than to go work those hours instead). Government subsidies to make fast food nearly free don’t work that well when much of the population has no access to it either. This situation is somewhat inverted from America’s problem (healthier city dwellers that walk with fewer children, unhealthy rural population dependent upon cars that reproduce far more).
Nobody is forcing people to eat fast food all the time. They are consenting by choosing it.
If you get it all snipped, you won't have to worry about those nasty STD's, either.