proposed requiring a new label<\/a> on the front of most packaged food and drinks that would alert consumers to how much saturated fat, salt and added sugar they contained.<\/p>\nThursday\u2019s report was based on findings from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, from August 2021 to August 2023.<\/p>\n
The report\u2019s lead author, Anne Williams, a researcher with the National Center for Health Statistics, said the agency identified ultra-processed foods using the NOVA classification system \u2014 a framework developed by Brazilian researchers that\u2019s the most commonly used tool to evaluate processed foods. NOVA defines ultra-processed products as \u201cindustrial creations\u201d made with little \u2014 if any \u2014 whole foods.<\/p>\n
The top source of ultra-processed foods for both kids and adults was sandwiches, such as burgers, hot dogs and PB&Js, Williams said. That was followed by baked goods, salty snacks and sugary drinks.<\/p>\n
The report found that adults with higher incomes tended to eat fewer ultra-processed foods.<\/p>\n
It also found that intake of ultra-processed foods for both kids and adults dropped slightly from 2017-18 to August 2021\u201323. For adults, the decline started even earlier, going back to 2013\u201314. Williams cautioned that the decline so far has been small \u2014 a 56-calorie difference over roughly a decade. <\/p>\n
Marion Nestle, professor emerita of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University, said the CDC\u2019s findings align with what outside researchers have found about Americans\u2019 eating habits. <\/p>\n
Nestle said parents tend to gravitate toward ultra-processed foods for their kids because they\u2019re easy to throw in a school lunch bag.<\/p>\n
But, she added, probably the biggest reason kids eat so many ultra-processed foods is that the food industry heavily markets it to them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re the most profitable products in the supermarket, and the companies sell them, they market them directly to kids,\u201d Nestle said. \u201cThey\u2019re seen as cool and are iconic and you\u2019re lucky to eat them, because that\u2019s how they\u2019re marketed.\u201d<\/p>\n
The term \u201cultra-processed food\u201d was created around 2009 and has primarily been used for research purposes, said Susan Mayne, who was director of the FDA\u2019s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition in both the Biden and the first Trump administrations. <\/p>\n
Mayne said research has shown that eating ultra-processed foods in general is linked to increased caloric intake and weight gain and that it is associated with greater risk of chronic diseases. <\/p>\n
The problem with defining ultra-processed foods, she said, is that not all of them are linked to greater health risks. In fact, some \u2014 like certain yogurts, whole grain breads and cereals \u2014 are actually associated with reduced risks of chronic diseases like colon cancer. States like California have tried to address that by coming up with a definition of \u201cparticularly harmful\u201d ultra-processed foods, she added.<\/p>\n
The NOVA classification system also has limitations, as it doesn\u2019t directly measure processing, Mayne said. Rather, it uses additives and specific ingredients as a proxy for the level of processing. <\/p>\n
\u201cFDA is engaging in a public process to attempt to define UPF, which is a good first step,\u201d Mayne said in an email, referring to ultra-processed foods. \u201cBut it would be important to repeat studies to demonstrate that the new definition is as or more predictive of chronic disease risk than existing definitions before it could be used for policies.\u201d<\/p>\n
HHS hasn\u2019t said when it plans to formally define \u201cultra-processed.\u201d <\/p>\n
Nestle said she hopes the Trump administration also targets marketing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are highly convenient products, and the kids will eat them because the kids have been trained to eat them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ultra-processed foods make up the bulk of what kids eat \u2014 and adults aren\u2019t far behind, a report…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":324923,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4318],"tags":[105,4434,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-324922","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nutrition","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-nutrition","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114986983559559028","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}