Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) are a leading cause of a “chronic disease pandemic” linked to worsening diets, experts have warned.
UPFs include items such as processed meats, some ready meals and cereals, ice cream, crisps, biscuits, mass-produced bread and fizzy drinks.
They often contain a high level of saturated fat, salt and sugar – as well as additives such as sweeteners and preservatives.
UPFs leave less room for more nutritious foods and are also believed to negatively affect gut health.
Forty-three scientists and researchers have now sounded the alarm and accused food companies of putting “profitability above all else”.
Writing in The Lancet, they said the firms’ economic and political power is growing and “the global public health response is still nascent, akin to where the tobacco control movement was decades ago”.
They warned that while some countries have brought in controls on UPFs, policy is lagging due to “co-ordinated efforts of the industry to skew decision-making, frame policy debates in their interest, and manufacture the appearance of scientific doubt”.
Professor Chris Van Tulleken, from University College London, one of the authors, said obesity and diet-related disease had increased in line with a “three-decade history of reformulation by the food industry”.
“This is not a product level discussion. The entire diet is being ultra-processed,” he warned.
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However, several experts not involved with the article urged more research, cautioning that existing studies had shown a link with poor health and UPFs but not established causation.
Kate Halliwell, chief scientific officer at the Food and Drink Federation (FDF), which represents the industry, said companies had made a “series of changes over many years to make the food and drink we all buy healthier, in line with government guidelines”.
She said FDF-member…
