🔗 Share this article

This plague of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) is an international crisis. Even though their intake is especially elevated in Western nations, constituting more than half the average diet in nations like Britain and America, for example, UPFs are taking the place of whole foods in diets on every continent.

In the latest development, a comprehensive global study on the risks to physical condition of UPFs was issued. It warned that such foods are exposing millions of people to persistent health issues, and called for urgent action. In a prior announcement, a major children's agency revealed that more children around the world were suffering from obesity than underweight for the initial instance, as junk food floods diets, with the steepest rises in less affluent regions.

A noted nutrition professor, a scholar in the field of nourishment science at the a major educational institution in Brazil, and one of the review's authors, says that businesses motivated by financial gain, not personal decisions, are driving the change in habits.

For parents, it can appear that the whole nutritional landscape is opposing them. “Sometimes it feels like we have zero control over what we are placing onto our children's meals,” says one mother from the Indian subcontinent. We conversed with her and four other parents from internationally on the expanding hurdles and annoyances of supplying a balanced nourishment in the age of UPFs.

Nepal: ‘She Craves Cookies, Chocolate and Juice’

Bringing up a child in the Himalayan nation today often feels like battling an uphill struggle, especially when it comes to food. I cook at home as much as I can, but the instant my daughter goes out, she is surrounded by vibrantly wrapped snacks and sugary drinks. She persistently desires cookies, chocolates and processed juice drinks – products intensively promoted to children. A single pizza commercial on TV is sufficient for her to ask, “Can we have pizza today?”

Even the academic atmosphere encourages unhealthy habits. Her cafeteria serves flavored drink every Tuesday, which she anxiously anticipates. She receives a six-piece biscuit pack from a friend on the school bus and chocolates on birthdays, and faces a french fry stand right outside her school gate.

On certain occasions it feels like the whole nutritional ecosystem is working against parents who are just striving to raise well-nourished kids.

As someone associated with the an organization fighting chronic illnesses and heading a project called Promoting Healthy Foods in Schools, I comprehend this issue deeply. Yet even with my knowledge, keeping my eight-year-old daughter healthy is incredibly difficult.

These repeated exposures at school, in transit and online make it next to unattainable for parents to curb ultra-processed foods. It is not just about children’s choices; it is about a food system that makes standard and advocates for unhealthy eating.

And the figures mirrors precisely what households such as my own are facing. A comprehensive population report found that 69% of children between six and 23 months ate unhealthy foods, and 43% were already drinking flavored liquids.

These figures resonate with what I see every day. A study conducted in the area where I live reported that 18.6% of schoolchildren were overweight and a smaller yet concerning fraction were clinically overweight, figures strongly correlated with the surge in unhealthy snacking and increasingly inactive lifestyles. Further research showed that many kids in Nepal eat sugary treats or processed savoury foods on a regular basis, and this habitual eating is associated with high levels of dental cavities.

This nation urgently needs tighter rules, better nutritional atmospheres in schools and tougher advertising controls. Before that happens, families will continue engaging in an ongoing struggle against processed items – an individual snack bag at a time.

St Vincent and the Grenadines: ‘Greasy, Salty, Sugary Fast Food is the Preference’

My position is a bit particular as I was compelled to move from an island in our chain of islands that was ravaged by a powerful storm last year. But it is also part of the bleak situation that is confronting parents in a region that is experiencing the very worst effects of climate change.

“The situation definitely becomes more severe if a cyclone or volcanic eruption wipes out most of your vegetation.”

Before the occurrence of the storm, as a dietary educator, I was deeply concerned about the increasing proliferation of quick-service eateries. Currently, even community markets are participating in the shift of a country once defined by a diet of fresh regional fruits and vegetables, to one where greasy, salty, sugary fast food, packed with artificial ingredients, is the preference.

But the situation definitely intensifies if a natural disaster or mountain activity wipes out most of your crops. Nutritious whole foods becomes hard to find and prohibitively costly, so it is exceptionally hard to get your kids to consume healthy meals.

Despite having a stable employment I flinch at food prices now and have often turned to choosing between items such as peas and beans and protein sources when feeding my four children. Offering reduced portions or diminished quantities have also become part of the post-disaster coping strategies.

Also it is quite convenient when you are managing a demanding job with parenting, and scrambling in the morning, to just give the children a couple of coins to buy snacks at school. Unfortunately, most educational snack bars only offer ultra-processed snacks and sugary sodas. The result of these challenges, I fear, is an increase in the already widespread prevalence of non-communicable illnesses such as blood sugar disorders and high blood pressure.

The Allure of Fast Food in Uganda

The logo of a global fast-food brand towers conspicuously at the entrance of a mall in a Kampala neighbourhood, daring you to pass by without stopping at the quick service lane.

Many of the kids and caregivers visiting the mall have never traveled past the borders of Uganda. They certainly don’t know about the past financial depression that led the founder to start one of the first global eatery brands. All they know is that the brand name represent all things sophisticated.

Throughout commercial complexes and every market, there is quick-service cuisine for all budgets. As one of the pricier selections, the fried chicken chain is considered a treat. It is the place city residents go to observe birthdays and baptisms. It is the children’s prize when they get a good school report. In fact, they are hoping their parents take them there for festive celebrations.

“Mum, do you know that some people take takeaway for school lunch,” my teenage girl, who attends a school in the area, tells me. She says that on the days they do not pack that, they pack food from a local quick-service outlet selling everything from cooked morning dishes to burgers.

It is the end of the week, and I am only {half-listening|