I’m not talking about the “typical” junk food (like KFC or McDonalds), instead it’s more on certain aspects of Japanese cuisine being carb heavy or features fried items such as: ramen, agepan, karage, tempura, gyudon, tonkatsu, yakitori, etc. I mean, can ramen or gyudon bowls still be deemed “fast food” even though they appear ‘healthier’ than American fast food.
Carbs are sugars. Just more complex than simple sugars. That’s why carb-rich diets can still be terrible on health over time, regularly messing with glycemic load and constituting ‘empty calories.’ So, even worse than a pre-diabetic source, as I mentioned.
I’d recommend you do a modern nutrition course to catch up on this stuff, because science & nutrition is way past the simple idea of calories-in / calories-out. The fact is that the FORM of the calories matter hugely, with processed foods in general being pretty bad on health, long-term. These are what the studies collectively say.