The case for a ban ~I

A recent UNICEF report titled “Feeding Profit: How Food Environments are Failing Children” revealed very disturbing facts. It reported that globally, there are more overweight than underweight children, and overweight is the dominant form of malnutrition among school-going children and adolescents. The report said that as of 2022, 20 per cent kids in the 5-19 age group were overweight, while only 10 per cent were underweight, and 8 per cent of the overweight kids were obese.

The trend was seen to be more pronounced in lower and middle-income nations. This was a sharp change from 2000 when 13 per cent children were underweight and only 11 per cent overweight. The report held the ultra-processed food (UPF) and soft drinks industry primarily responsible and urged governments to take urgent steps to protect kids’ diets by restricting availability, marketing and purchase of UPFs. The report elaborates how the UPF and beverage industries exercise disproportionate influence over what children eat: “It shapes what foods and beverages are produced and how they ae marketed, especially in settings where government regulation is weak or absent.

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In pursuit of profit, the industry leverages vast financial resources and deep political influence to resist policies aimed at creating healthier, more equitable food environments.” These foods are more widely available, priced inexpensively, and marketed aggressively in places where children live, learn and play, without much regulatory constraints in the low and middle-income countries, where inexpensive UPFs and beverages are flooding retail markets and schools. The report cited studies in Tanzania and Zimbabwe about how Public Private Partnerships are enabling UPF companies to distribute their food products directly in schools to build brand loyalty among young people.

The report noted, “The unethical business practices of the UPF and beverage industry undermine efforts to put legal measures and policies in place to protect children from unhealthy food environments.” It recommends “robust safeguards to protect public policy processes from interference by the UPF industry” including compulsory exclusion of industry actors in policy design and implementation. According to the UN, between 1961 and 2021, the average daily food supply available for a person in the rich world increased by over 20 per cent to 3,500 kilocalories, but obesity rates have more than tripled; today, globally, one in three people is obese or overweight. All evidence points to UPFs. The Economist reports that in UK, USA, Canada and Australia, UPFs now make up over half of caloric intake, in some cases approaching 70 per cent.

This is not the case with France, Spain and Italy which follow traditional diets, but rising consumption points to a transition away from home-cooked foods toward packaged and convenience items. A Lancet study in 2022 reported that in India, among children aged 5-19 years, there were about 1.25 crore children and adolescents who were either overweight or obese. Early in this century, Dr. Carlos Augusto Monteiro, a Brazilian epidemiologist, noticed that people in Brazil were buying less sugar and oil than in the past, and yet obesity and metabolic diseases were rising.

At that time, packaged snacks and ready-made meals loaded with sugar, fats and preservatives were gaining in popularity. In 2009, Dr Monteiro came up with a classification system for food called Nova according to their degree of processing. Foods like fruits and milk that required minimal processing belong to the first group, basic ingredients like butter and sugar belong to the second, while tinned vegetables, bread, and cold cuts belong to the third. It is the fourth group ~ the UPFs, that includes heavily processed items like fizzy drinks, sugary cereals and frozen pizzas, etc. that are most harmful to human health; they are made from ingredients like hydrogenated oils, high-fructose corn syrup, flavouring agents and emulsifiers which are not found in the home kitchen.

UPFs are made by breaking down whole foods into components such as sugars, proteins, starches and fibre, which are then chemically modified and reassembled along with additives like artificial colours, preservatives and sweeteners to make the food more appealing and what is more dangerous ~ more addictive. Multinational food companies employ the best brains from the best universities in the world and pay them millions of dollars just to research how to make such foods irresistible. The result is visible to all of us, open a packet of chips and it finishes before we even noticed.

This is a win-win game not only for the food and beverages industry but also for the pharmaceutical industry for obvious reasons, and even the government gets taxes from increased sales and investments from these companies. The only losers are the voiceless, helpless, hapless people who are not even aware of the damage they are causing to themselves and their children by consuming such foods. Authorities in Brazil, Canada and Peru are advising the public to limit consumption of these foods, while Colombia imposed a tax on highly processed foods and drinks. UK has banned TV and online advertising on unhealthy foods and drinks from October this year through legislation. The restrictions apply to food products that constitute over 20 per cent of all food-and-drink purchases in British supermarkets – foods that are high in saturated fat, salt and sugar; they are the subjects of 60 per cent of all food-and-drink advertisements.

Big supermarkets will now be barred from selling such stuff using volume-based promotions. The efficacy of the measure is doubtful ~ the food industry with its powerful lobbies can resort to endless gimmicks to beat the law. Making regulations on food to promote a healthy diet is never easy. Policymakers have a tough job promoting healthier alternatives rooted in local culinary traditions. Indeed, regulating UPF and beverages is extremely difficult because the major players in these industries have immense financial leverage to arm-twist most governments. Their turnovers or market caps would exceed the GDP of most countries. They have no ethical concerns, taking advantage of weak regulation. Nestlé, the Swiss food MNC, was recently caught adding extra sugar to their baby food Cerelac in third-world countries, but not in developed countries.

The product is fed to babies 1-6 months old, and consumption of too much sugar at a young age can not only have long-term consequences like affecting the brain, but can be addictive as well, which assures a future market for MNCs. Numerous studies show that people who consume diets high in UPFs are exposed to high risks for obesity, type-2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, various cancers and non-communicable diseases as well as mental-health problems. A 2019 NIH study by Kevin Hall found that UPF eaters consume 500 extra calories per day, eat more quickly and gain weight, suggesting that UPFs, engineered to be irresistibly tasty and energy-dense, prevent natural satiety cues from working. The combinations of ingredients like fat or carbohydrate plus sugar or salt which make food hyper-palatable do not occur in nature; they make people to eat more quickly, not giving enough time to the brain to tell the gut that it is full.

A Lancet-linked study of 300,000 people conducted over a period of nearly 11 years found a 17 per cent higher incidence of diabetes for every 10 per cent rise in UPF intake. Another study covering eight countries (Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, UK, and USA) showed that UPF consumption is clearly linked not only to half a dozen diseases but often leads to premature deaths. Yet another study, published in the journal Cell Metabolism, found that UPFs can negatively impact sperm quality and overall reproductive and metabolic health. All these only point to only one course of action by the government, to completely ban UPFs and sugary beverages from the Indian market. What will be consequences of such a ban, in terms of employment, income and growth? We shall try to explore this in the second part of this article.

(The writer is a commentator, author and academic. Opinions expressed are personal)