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Whether it’s pasta alfredo, a big bar of chocolate, pizza, or chips, we’ve all got our guilty pleasures when it comes to food – things that we know aren’t good for us, offer little in the way of nutritional value, but just taste good.
And there’s nothing wrong with allowing ourselves the comfort and pleasure of a little treat every now and then – providing it is in moderation, of course.
But there is a reason that across the world, our waistlines are growing, with 43% of adults across the world being overweight, and 16% classed as obese, according to the World Health Organization. Quite alarmingly, according to the CDC, 41.9% of adults in the US are obese, showing just how prevalent the problem really is.
Why? Well a lot of this comes down to the availability, affordability, and appeal of healthy versus unhealthy foods. With huge multinational corporations pushing cheap, easy, and tasty foods packed with salt, sugar, and saturated fats whilst the prices of healthy, unprocessed food continues to rise, for many, ultra-processed food is a no-brainer.
But it’s having a dramatic and negative effect on worldwide health.
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The real evidence of this was proven in a recent study led by researchers at University College London, in the UK. Their paper, which was published in the journal Nature Medicine, aimed to show how weight and overall health was affected by consuming ultra-processed food.
After all, obesity doesn’t just put a strain on the waistband of your favorite pants; it also puts a strain on the vital organs that are keeping you alive, with the risk of heart disease, strokes, Type 2 diabetes, and certain types of cancer all increasing for people who are obese.
In the study, 55 adults in the UK were provided with deliveries of either ultra-processed or minimally-processed food, to eat over the course of eight weeks. Then, they ate their own, ‘normal’ diets for four weeks, before being provided with deliveries of the opposite kinds of food.
Regardless of whether they were ultra-processed or minimally-processed, the food deliveries contained more calories than the participants required, and the food supplied was nutritionally balanced. They were told to eat as much as they needed of the food supplied.
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Throughout the study, their weight and health was monitored, whilst the researchers also collated data on wellbeing factors such as food cravings, to help understand the effects of ultra-processed versus minimally-processed foods on the human body.
The results were staggering, with 2.06% weight loss over the eight week period for those on the minimally-processed diet. Over the course of a whole year of consuming minimally-processed food, the researchers suggest, this would be cumulative, leading to impressive yet sustainable weight loss, as UCL’s Dr Samuel Dicken explained in a statement:
“The primary outcome of the trial was to assess percentage changes in weight and on both diets we saw a significant reduction, but the effect was nearly double on the minimally processed diet. Though a 2% reduction may not seem very big, that is only over eight weeks and without people trying to actively reduce their intake. If we scaled these results up over the course of a year, we’d expect to see a 13% weight reduction in men and a 9% reduction in women on the minimally processed diet, but only a 4% weight reduction in men and 5% in women after the ultra-processed diet. Over time this would start to become a big difference.”
Why? Well, unlike ultra-processed foods, minimally-processed foods tend to fill you up more, with fewer calories. In fact, while eating the minimally-processed diet, participants on average had a 290 kcal deficit. With measurements proving that the weight loss came only from body fat and water retention (rather than muscle mass, for example), the evidence here is solid.
Meanwhile, impressively, those on the ultra-processed food diet also lost weight, with a total of 1.05% reduction. This sounds unusual, however the research team believe this is the result of the participants – despite only eating ultra-processed food – were still consuming a nutritionally balanced diet, which most participants did not usually follow.
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Moreover, participants reported a significant reduction in food cravings, as well as an increased ability resist these cravings, while following the minimally-processed diet. Given that many attempts to lose weight falter due to seemingly insurmountable cravings, the ability to resist these is vital to weight loss.
With this data in mind, the researchers explain that minimally-processed foods, along with a balanced diet, are the key to losing weight and reducing the risk of health problems associated with obesity.
But with whole foods, ingredients, and raw fruit and vegetables coming at quite a cost when compared with easy, cheap ready meals, systemic change is the only way forward, as UCL’s Professor Chris van Tulleken continued in the statement:
“The global food system at the moment drives diet-related poor health and obesity, particularly because of the wide availability of cheap, unhealthy food. This study highlights the importance of ultra-processing in driving health outcomes in addition to the role of nutrients like fat, salt and sugar. It underlines the need to shift the policy focus away from individual responsibility and on to the environmental drivers of obesity, such as the influence of multinational food companies in shaping unhealthy food environments. Stakeholders across disciplines and organisations must work together and focus on wider policy actions that improve our food environment, such as warning labels, marketing restrictions, progressive taxation and subsidies, to ensure that healthy diets are affordable, available and desirable for all.”
If we can make healthier food more appealing and affordable, the study suggests, the difference wouldn’t just be to the individual. Greater health benefits societies as a whole, and ultra-processed food is, in part, costing us our health and wellbeing.
Something needs to change.
If you thought that was interesting, you might like to read about a quantum computer simulation that has “reversed time” and physics may never be the same.
Categories: SCI/TECH
Tags: · health, healthy diet, medical research, medicine, minimally-processed food, obesity, overweight, processed food, quality of life, science, single topic, top, ultra-processed foods, unprocessed food, weight loss, wellbeing