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New Delhi: With a 40-fold rise in the sale of ultra-processed food in India in less than 15 years adversely impacting public health, researchers and doctors on Wednesday asked the Union government to take steps urgently for improving diets as “voluntary self-regulation has been found ineffective.”
Relying on the findings of three studies published in a series in The Lancet, they said improving diets couldn’t rely on consumer behaviour alone as policies were required to stop production, marketing and consumption of such ultra-processed food, besides improving access to healthy food.
Evidence shows UPFs are displacing long-established dietary patterns, worsening diet quality and are associated with an increased risk of multiple chronic diseases.
“Between 2006 and 2019, the UPF sales rose by 40 times in India. In the same period, obesity doubled in India in both men and women. But the food industry does lobbying to block regulations,” said Arun Gupta, a pediatrician and one of the authors of the Lancet Series papers.
UPFs are the most processed group of foods that are identified by the presence of additives to enhance the texture, flavour and appearance. All junk food – technically known as HFSS or food high in fat, sugar and/or salt – fall in this category.
“We want the Union Health Ministry and Food Safety and Standards Authority of India to recognise UPF and HFSS, and regulate accordingly,” Gupta said.
The Lancet Series summarises growing evidence that UPFs worsen diet quality and increase risk for non-communicable disease. UPFs are strongly linked to an increased risk of chronic health conditions, including obesity, type-2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, depression and premature death.
Vandana Prasad, a paediatrician and public health professional said policies and regulations were needed because voluntary self-regulation was found ineffective.
At the core of the UPF industry is the large-scale processing of cheap commodities such as maize, wheat, soy and palm oil into a wide variety of food-derived substances and additives controlled by a small number of transnational corporations.
"The eight largest transnational UPF manufacturers are Nestlé (Switzerland), PepsiCo (the USA), Unilever (the UK), Coca-Cola (the USA), Danone (France), Fomento Económico Mexicano (Mexico), Mondelez (the USA), and Kraft Heinz (the USA),” says one of the Lancet papers.
Sylvie Chamois, Nutrition Specialist at UNICEF India said UPFs were one of the most serious yet poorly addressed risks to child nutrition and health.
“UPFs flood children’s food environments because commercial interests dominate policy spaces. If countries like India - where UPF markets are expanding most rapidly - are among the fastest to act, the collective impact will be significant,” she said.
Eminent cardiologist K Srinath Reddy, Chancellor of PHFI University of Public Health Sciences said, “UPFs are advertised addictions, which can lead to many marketed maladies. As invariably happens, the commercial drivers of unhealthy products target the large population of low and middle income countries to rapidly expand their market and scale up profits.”