The impacts of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) on children’s health is under the microscope with a panel of experts arguing for more rigorous science to better understand their role in diet-related chronic disease.
Leading academics and doctors discussed the topic at the National Academy of Medicine webinar, What Should Kids Eat? Ultra-Processed Foods and Children’s Health, following the release of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Make American Children Healthy Again report on Sept. 9.
More science needed
The forum emphasized the complex nature of studying UPFs, and highlighted the importance of research like that of panelist Kevin Hall, a nutrition scientist, co-author of Food Intelligence and former senior investigator for the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Hall also is author of a landmark study in 2019 that for the first time correlated ultra-processed foods to weight gain. The study was the first randomized clinical trial to analyze two control groups of subjects who followed two separate diets – one with ultra-processed foods and the other with minimally processed foods.
“What we showed was that the high ultra-processed food environment led people to overeat and gain weight, whereas the minimally processed food environment led those same people to basically spontaneously lose weight and consume many fewer calories. And so since that time, we’ve been working to try to identify the specific mechanisms. What are the properties of ultra-processed foods and diets or environments high in ultra-processed foods that drive that excess calorie intake effect?” Hall said.
Hall’s time at NIH was cut short in April, when he retired from his position in protest of what he described as federal officials censoring his work and barring him from speaking with the press.
MAHA soft on UPFs
Hall co-authored an essay with journalist Julia Belluz in the New York Times on Sept. 10, taking aim at HHS Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr and deriding the flood of mixed messages the public receives about health advice on social media.
“If you are interested in health and wellness, your social media feed is probably flooded with such advice – influencers spouting tips on protocols and products that promise to optimize your individual health,” the column noted. “Such advice has won the backing of Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, who makes valid critiques of the state of America’s health while promoting wearable health devices to help people ‘take responsibility’ and promising to free Americans from the Food and Drug Administration’s ‘aggressive suppression’ of vitamin supplements, which he views as a key part of a healthy lifestyle.”
Hall also criticized the MAHA children’s report for failing to address the negative health outcomes associated with ultra-processed foods.
“When it comes to ultra-processed foods, it says only that the government will ‘continue efforts to develop’ a definition for them and will recommend reducing consumption of highly processed foods in forthcoming dietary guidelines that Americans have traditionally struggled to follow. That doesn’t go far enough,” he wrote.
Science on the chopping block
Hall said in the webinar that the nation is backing away from science, and it is more important than ever for voters to let their elected officials know they support science.
“We’re experiencing the greatest kind of reduction in support for biomedical research that I think America has ever seen, and we need to contact our representatives,” he said. “Fortunately, it seems that Congress is receptive to that message and has rebuffed some of the president’s suggested 40% budget cuts to the NIH and have resisted that, but we have to be able to spend that money, too, and get it out to universities and places.”
