DO FOOD COMPANIES CONTROL OUR DIETS?

The commercial food system is of increasing concern to those responsible for improving population health. The transition in global nutrition is rapidly changing agricultural practices and increasing the consumption of nutritionally poor processed foods, which are associated with increases in non-communicable diseases. The growth of childhood obesity, in particular, continues largely unchecked, risking enormous burdens of future disease, health system costs, and intergenerational inequalities.

A number of aspects of nutritionally poor processed foods, especially ultra-processed foods, are unhealthy (eg, excess sugar). The mechanisms that lead to associations between processed foods and poor health remain largely unknown. Processed foods have some advantages — for example, their longer shelf life and convenience — and they may not inherently need to be unhealthy. Nevertheless, how to achieve healthier processed foods remains unclear.

Food processing, and associated marketing, adds value to raw ingredients and is a key driver of profits for the commercial food system. Large, and especially publicly listed, food companies operate in an economic environment that demands continual growth of profits. This drive for profits leads to a range of emergent behaviours, such as aggressive marketing, the avoidance of regulation that could impede profits (eg, through lobbying), and the generation of huge external health, social, and environmental costs associated with the high volume sales of processed foods. These behaviours amplify the direct adverse effects of processed foods and result in poor alignment between commercial food production, environmental sustainability, societal wellbeing, and population health goals. This imbalance is unsustainable and needs urgent attention. The syndemic crises of climate change and global obesity need to be treated as emergencies now to avoid catastrophic costs and consequences for future generations