🔗 Share this article

The menace of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) is an international crisis. Although their use is particularly high in developed countries, forming more than half the average diet in places such as the United Kingdom and United States, for example, UPFs are displacing whole foods in diets on every continent.

This month, an extensive international analysis 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. Previously in the year, an international child welfare organization revealed that an increased count of kids around the world were overweight than too thin for the historic moment, as junk food floods diets, with the sharpest climbs in developing nations.

Carlos Monteiro, professor of public health nutrition at the a prominent Brazilian university, and one of the study's contributors, says that profit-driven corporations, not personal decisions, are propelling the change in habits.

For parents, it can seem as if the entire food system 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 India. We spoke to her and four other parents from internationally on the increasing difficulties and frustrations of supplying a balanced nourishment in the time of manufactured foods.

In Nepal: Battling a Child's Desire for Packaged Snacks

Bringing up a child in Nepal today often feels like battling an uphill struggle, especially when it comes to food. I prepare meals at home as much as I can, but the instant my daughter steps outside, she is encircled by vibrantly wrapped snacks and sweetened beverages. She constantly craves cookies, chocolates and processed juice drinks – products aggressively advertised to children. A single pizza commercial on TV is enough for her to ask, “Is it possible to eat pizza today?”

Even the school environment perpetuates unhealthy habits. Her canteen serves sweetened fruit juice every Tuesday, which she looks forward to. She is given a packet of six cookies from a friend on the school bus and chocolates on birthdays, and encounters a french fry stand right outside her school gate.

At times it feels like the entire food environment is opposing parents who are merely attempting to raise healthy children.

As someone associated with the a national health coalition and leading a project called Advocating for Better School Diets, I understand this issue thoroughly. Yet even with my professional background, keeping my eight-year-old daughter healthy is incredibly difficult.

These constant encounters at school, in transit and online make it almost unfeasible for parents to limit ultra-processed foods. It is not just about the selections of the young; it is about a dietary structure that encourages and promotes unhealthy eating.

And the statistics shows clearly what families like mine are experiencing. A demographic health study found that 69% of children between six and 23 months ate poor dietary items, and a substantial portion were already drinking flavored liquids.

These figures echo what I see every day. Research conducted in the area where I live reported that almost one in five of schoolchildren were carrying excess weight and a smaller yet concerning fraction were clinically overweight, figures strongly correlated with the surge in processed food intake and increasingly inactive lifestyles. Further research showed that many kids in Nepal eat candy or salty packaged items almost daily, and this habitual eating is tied to high levels of oral health problems.

Nepal urgently needs tighter rules, healthier school environments and more stringent promotion limits. In the meantime, families will continue fighting a daily battle against junk food – an individual snack bag at a time.

Caribbean Challenges: When Fast Food Becomes the Default

My circumstances is a bit particular as I was compelled to move from an island in our group of isles that was ravaged by a major hurricane last year. But it is also part of the harsh truth that is confronting parents in a area that is enduring the very worst effects of environmental shifts.

“The situation definitely deteriorates if a storm or mountain explosion eliminates most of your plant life.”

Before the occurrence of the storm, as a nutrition instructor, I was extremely troubled about the rising expansion of convenience food outlets. Nowadays, even local corner stores are complicit in the shift of a country once known for a diet of nutritious home-produced fruits and vegetables, to one where greasy, salty, sugary fast food, loaded with manufactured additives, is the favorite.

But the situation definitely worsens if a severe weather event or volcanic eruption destroys most of your produce. Fresh, healthy food becomes rare and very expensive, so it is really difficult to get your kids to eat right.

Regardless of having a steady job I am shocked by food prices now and have often opted for picking one of items such as peas and beans and meat and eggs when feeding my four children. Offering reduced portions or reduced helpings have also become part of the post-crisis adaptation techniques.

Also it is quite convenient when you are juggling a challenging career with parenting, and rushing around in the morning, to just give the children a couple of coins to buy snacks at school. Sadly, most educational snack bars only offer manufactured munchies and sugary sodas. The consequence of these difficulties, I fear, is an rise in the already epidemic rates of non-communicable illnesses such as blood sugar disorders and high blood pressure.

Kampala's Landscape: A Fast-Food Dominated Environment

The symbol of a international restaurant franchise stands prominently at the entrance of a shopping center in a urban area, daring you to pass by without stopping at the drive-through.

Many of the children and parents visiting the mall have never ventured outside the borders of the country. They certainly don’t know about the historical economic crisis that inspired the founder to start one of the first American international food chains. All they know is that the brand name represent all things sophisticated.

Throughout commercial complexes and every market, there is fast food for any income level. As one of the costlier choices, the fried chicken chain is considered a treat. It is the place city residents go to mark birthdays and baptisms. It is the children’s reward when they get a positive academic results. In fact, they are hoping their parents take them there for the holidays.

“Mum, do you know that some people bring fast food for school lunch,” my 14-year-old daughter, 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 popular east African fast-food chain selling everything from cooked morning dishes to burgers.

It is Friday evening, and I am only {half-listening|