Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) are replacing healthy diets ‘around the world’ despite growing evidence of the risks they pose and should be sold with tobacco-style warnings, according to the food scientist who first coined the term.
Prof Carlos Monteiro from the University of São Paulo will highlight the increasing danger that UPFs pose to children and adults this week at the International Congress on Obesity.
“UPFs are increasing their share and dominance of global diets, despite the risk they pose to health in terms of increasing the risk of multiple chronic diseases,” Monteiro told The Guardian ahead of the São Paulo conference.
“UPFs are displacing healthier, less processed foods around the world, and are also causing deterioration in diet quality due to their various harmful properties. Together, these foods are driving the pandemic of obesity and other diet-related chronic diseases, such as diabetes.”
This stark warning comes amid rapidly rising global consumption of UPFs such as breakfast cereals, protein bars, carbonated drinks, ready-made meals and fast food.
In Britain and the US, ultra-processed foods now make up more than half of the average diet. For some, especially people who are younger, poorer, or from disadvantaged areas, a diet with as much as 80% UPF is typical.
In February, the world’s largest study of its kind found that UPFs were directly linked to 32 adverse health consequences, including a higher risk of heart disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes, adverse mental health and premature death.
Monteiro and his colleagues first used the term UPF 15 years ago when designing the “Nova” food classification system, which assesses not only nutritional value but also the processes that food undergoes before it is consumed.
The system classifies food and beverages into four groups: minimally processed foods, processed culinary ingredients, processed foods and ultra-processed foods.
Monteiro told the Guardian that he was now so concerned about the impact UPF was having on human health that studies and reviews were no longer enough to warn the public of the health dangers.
“Public health campaigns, like those against tobacco, are needed to curb the dangers of UPFs,” he told the Guardian in an email. “Such campaigns would cover the health risks of consuming UPFs.
“Advertising of UPFs should also be banned or severely restricted, and there should be front-of-pack warnings similar to those on cigarette packs.”
He will tell delegates: “The sale of UPFs in schools and health care facilities should be banned, and there should be a heavy tax on UPFs, with the revenue generated being used to subsidize fresh food.”
Monteiro will tell the conference that food giants marketing UPFs know that to be competitive, their products must be more convenient, affordable and tastier than freshly prepared meals. “To maximize profits, these UPFs should have lower production costs and be consumed in excess,” he said.
He will also draw parallels between UPF and tobacco companies. “Both tobacco and UPFs cause numerous serious illnesses and premature deaths; both are produced by transnational corporations that invest the enormous profits they make from their attractive/addictive products in aggressive marketing strategies and lobbying against regulation; and both are pathogenic (dangerous) by design, so reformulation is not a solution.”
Dr. However, Hilda Mulrooney, a reader in nutrition and health at London Metropolitan University, said comparing UPF with tobacco was “very simplistic”.
“There is no such thing as a safe cigarette, not even second-hand, so banning them is relatively easy because the health issue is very clear.
“However, we need a range of nutrients, including fat, sugar and salt, and they have multiple functions in foods – structural, shelf life – and not just taste and flavor and hedonic properties.
“It is not as easy to reformulate some foods to reduce them, and they are not the same as tobacco, because we need food – just not in the amounts that most of us consume.”