🔗 Share this article

The plague of highly processed food items is an international crisis. Although their use is notably greater in developed countries, making up the majority of the average diet in nations like Britain and America, for example, UPFs are replacing whole foods in diets on each part of the world.

Recently, a comprehensive global study on the dangers to well-being of UPFs was published. It cautioned that such foods are exposing millions of people to long-term harm, and demanded swift intervention. Earlier this year, a global fund for children revealed that more children around the world were overweight than malnourished for the historic moment, as junk food dominates diets, with the most dramatic increases in less affluent regions.

Carlos Monteiro, a scholar in the field of nourishment science at the University of São Paulo, and one of the review's authors, says that profit-driven corporations, not consumer preferences, are fueling the shift in eating patterns.

For parents, it can feel like the complete dietary environment is working against them. “At times it feels like we have absolutely no power over what we are placing onto our children's meals,” says one mother from South Asia. We spoke to her and four other parents from around the world on the expanding hurdles and irritations of ensuring a balanced nourishment in the era of ultra-processing.

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

Bringing up a child in the Himalayan nation today often feels like battling an uphill struggle, especially when it comes to food. I make food at home as much as I can, but the second my daughter steps outside, she is bombarded with vibrantly wrapped snacks and sugary drinks. She constantly craves cookies, chocolates and packaged fruit juices – products heavily marketed to children. Just one pizza commercial on TV is sufficient for her to ask, “Can we have pizza today?”

Even the academic atmosphere perpetuates unhealthy habits. Her school lunchroom serves sugary juice every Tuesday, which she looks forward to. She receives a small package of biscuits from a friend on the school bus and chocolates on birthdays, and encounters a french fry stand right outside her school gate.

Some days it feels like the complete dietary landscape is undermining parents who are just striving to raise well-nourished kids.

As someone employed by the Nepal Non-Communicable Disease Alliance and spearheading a project called Advocating for Better School Diets, I understand this issue thoroughly. Yet even with my knowledge, keeping my young child healthy is incredibly difficult.

These constant encounters at school, in transit and online make it nearly impossible for parents to restrict ultra-processed foods. It is not just about children’s choices; it is about a nutritional framework that encourages and advocates for unhealthy eating.

And the statistics shows clearly what households such as my own are experiencing. A demographic health study found that over two-thirds of children between six and 23 months ate junk food, and a substantial portion were already drinking sugary drinks.

These figures are reflected in what I see every day. An analysis conducted in the region where I live reported that a notable percentage of schoolchildren were carrying excess weight and 7.1% were obese, figures directly linked with the increase in unhealthy snacking and more sedentary lifestyles. Another study showed that many Nepali children eat sweet snacks or processed savoury foods on a regular basis, and this habitual eating is tied to high levels of oral health problems.

Nepal urgently needs stronger policies, better nutritional atmospheres in schools and more stringent promotion limits. Until then, families will continue fighting a daily battle against junk food – a single cookie pack at a time.

Caribbean Challenges: When Fast Food Becomes the Default

My situation is a bit different as I was compelled to move from an island in our chain of islands that was ravaged by a major hurricane last year. But it is also part of the harsh truth that is affecting parents in a area that is feeling the most severe impacts of climate change.

“The situation definitely deteriorates if a cyclone or volcanic eruption destroys most of your plant life.”

Prior to the storm, as a food nutrition and health teacher, I was very worried about the rising expansion of fast food restaurants. Currently, even smaller village shops are complicit in the change of a country once characterized by a diet of fresh regional fruits and vegetables, to one where greasy, salty, sugary fast food, full of synthetic components, is the favorite.

But the condition definitely intensifies if a severe weather event or volcanic eruption destroys most of your vegetation. Unprocessed ingredients becomes scarce and very expensive, so it is exceptionally hard to get your kids to eat right.

In spite of having a steady job I am shocked by food prices now and have often opted for picking one of items such as legumes and pulses and animal products when feeding my four children. Providing less food or smaller servings have also become part of the post-disaster coping strategies.

Also it is very easy when you are balancing a demanding job with parenting, and hurrying about in the morning, to just give the children a small amount of cash to buy snacks at school. Sadly, most educational snack bars only offer ultra-processed snacks and sweet fizzy drinks. The outcome of these difficulties, I fear, is an increase in the already epidemic rates of lifestyle diseases such as type 2 diabetes and hypertension.

Kampala's Landscape: A Fast-Food Dominated Environment

The logo of a international restaurant franchise towers conspicuously 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 kids and caregivers visiting the mall have never gone beyond the borders of Uganda. They certainly don’t know about the past financial depression that motivated the founder to start one of the first global eatery brands. All they know is that the brand name represent all things modern.

In every mall and every market, there is fast food for all budgets. As one of the more expensive options, the fried chicken chain is considered a luxury. 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 Christmas.

“Mother, do you know that some people take fast food 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 popular east African fast-food chain selling everything from fried breakfasts to burgers.

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