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Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) are displacing healthy diets “around the world” despite growing evidence of the risks they pose and should be sold with tobacco-style warnings, according to the nutrition scientist who first coined the term.
Professor Carlos Monteiro from the University of São Paulo will highlight the growing danger of UPF for children and adults at the International Congress on Obesity this week.
“UPFs are increasing their share and dominance in 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 Sao Paulo conference.
“UPFs are displacing healthier, less processed foods around the world and also causing a deterioration in diet quality due to their several harmful qualities. Together, these foods are driving the obesity epidemic and other diet-related chronic diseases such as diabetes.
The stark warning comes amid rapidly growing global consumption of UPFs such as breakfast cereals, protein bars, fizzy drinks, ready meals and fast food.
In the UK and US, more than half the average diet now consists of ultra-processed food. For some, especially people who are younger, poorer or from disadvantaged areas, a diet including up to 80% UPF is typical.
In February, the world’s largest revue of its kind found that UPFs were directly linked to 32 adverse health effects, including a higher risk of heart disease, cancer, type 2 diabetes, adverse mental health and early death.
Monteiro and his colleagues first used the phrase UPF 15 years ago when they designed the “Nova” food classification system. This assesses not only the nutritional content but also the processes the food goes through before it is consumed.
The system places foods and beverages into four groups: minimally processed food, processed culinary ingredients, processed food and ultra-processed food.
Monteiro told the Guardian that he is now so concerned about the impact UPF is having on human health that studies and reviews are no longer enough to warn the public about the health hazards.
“Public health campaigns like those against tobacco are needed to limit the dangers of UPFs,” he told the Guardian in an email. “Such campaigns will include the health hazards of UPF consumption.
“Advertising for UPFs should also be banned or severely restricted, and front-of-pack warnings should be introduced similar to those used on cigarette packs.”
He will tell delegates: “The sale of UPF in schools and health facilities should be banned and there should be heavy taxation of UPF, with the revenue generated used to subsidize fresh food.”
Monteiro will tell the conference that food giants marketing UPF know that to be competitive, their products must be more convenient, more affordable and tastier than freshly prepared meals. “To maximize profits, these UPFs must have lower production costs and be over-consumed,” he said.
He will also draw parallels between UPF and tobacco companies. “Both tobacco and UPF cause multiple serious illnesses and premature mortality; both are produced by multinational corporations who invest the huge profits they make from their attractive/addictive products into aggressive marketing strategies and lobbying against regulation; both are pathogenic (dangerous) by design, so reformulation is not a solution.”
However, Dr Hilda Mulroney, reader in nutrition and health at London Metropolitan University, said comparing UPF with tobacco was “very simplistic”.
“There is no such thing as safe cigarettes, not even second-hand, so banning them is relatively straightforward because the health case 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 – not just taste and aroma and hedonic properties.”
“It’s not that easy to reformulate some food classes to reduce them, and they’re not the same as tobacco because we need food – just not in the amounts that most of us consume.”
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