Ultra-Processed Food: Quantity, Quality, Diets

Geometric Composition with Factory LandscapeSomething is up with our food supply that’s helping to drive the ever-rising prevalence of obesity. But the precise nature of the problem with the food supply is open for debate. People have many strong opinions. We’re too dependent on factory-farmed meat, say some people. Others are pushing for a food supply that promotes more plant-based diets. On a slightly different track, though, is the growing focus on the quantity and quality of ultra-processed food that accounts for an increasing portion of our diets.

Why, exactly, is it that ultra-processed foods are so strongly tied to the prevalence of obesity? Is it some specific quality of these foods? Or could it be the quantities of them that mass marketing keeps top of mind, puts at our fingertips, and prompts us to consume? Have these foods prompted us to shift the patterns of our diets in a way that promotes weight gain?

We have more questions than answers, but two new publications are worth your attention.

Quality and Dietary Patterns

Writing in Nature Food, Gyorgy Scrinis and Carlos Monteiro suggest that it is both the nutritional quality of ultra-processed food and the dietary patterns they promote that explain the link between these foods and obesity. Although ultra-processed foods may differ in their nutritional qualities, when they dominate a population’s diet, differences between products become less important than the quality of the diet:

“UPF dietary patterns tend to promote an unbalanced proportion of food groups, such as diets skewed toward inherently poor-quality types of foods (for example, snack foods, soft drinks and fried foods) and lacking in fresh foods; unbalanced food combinations (for example, ultra-processed hamburgers, chips and soft drinks); and unbalanced eating patterns (for example, frequent and mindless snacking).”

Putting Excess Calories in the Food Supply

From a different perspective, Emiliano Lopez Barrera and Gerald Shively look at the patterns and trends in excess calories in the food supply from 1890 to 2015. Looking at data from 156 countries, they find a clear and compelling relationship between excess calories and adult BMI for both men and women. Furthermore, they find the relationship is growing stronger with each successive generation. They conclude:

“The findings highlight how some standard agricultural and trade policies oriented toward reducing hunger by increasing calorie supplies might have unintended consequences for undesirable overweight, obesity, and health-related outcomes.”

A Global Pattern

Is it quality, quantity, or dietary patterns that explain the apparent influence of ultra-processed food on obesity prevalence? In truth, it’s likely that all of these factors matter. But the net result is that, as ultra-processed food comes to dominate the food supply, marketing and convenience drive patterns of diet that promote obesity.

Reversing this global pattern will not be easy. A privileged few have the resources to replace these convenient foods with minimally processed and skillfully prepared meals. But for most people, constraints of cost and time will get in the way. So ultra-processed foods will continue to be an important factor in the food supply.

The policy challenge is to find ways for them to promote – rather than undermine – human health.

Click here for the commentary by Scrinis and Monteiro, here for the analysis by Barrera and Shively. For further insight, this perspective from Deirdre Tobias and Kevin Hall is helpful.

Geometric Composition with Factory Landscape, painting by Giorgio de Chirico / WikiArt

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September 26, 2022

2 Responses to “Ultra-Processed Food: Quantity, Quality, Diets”

  1. September 30, 2022 at 10:00 pm, Carlos Monteiro said:

    I fully agree with you that ‘Is it quality, quantity, or dietary patterns that explain the apparent influence of ultra-processed food on obesity prevalence? In truth, it’s likely that all of these factors matter’. You are probably correct when you say: ‘Reversing this global pattern will not be easy. A privileged few have the resources to replace these convenient foods with minimally processed and skillfully prepared meals. But for most people, constraints of cost and time will get in the way’, but, in this case, you cannot generalize this statement since in most part of the world most people consume minimally processed foods and freshly prepared meals. I wrote a letter for Cell regarding this issue.If you want to check, I am pasting the link below:
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmet.2019.06.006

    • October 01, 2022 at 4:17 am, Ted said:

      Thanks for this reference.