According to experts, when UPFs account for 30 per cent or more of our diet (they account for more than 40 per cent of the average Australian’s daily energy intake), we start to get into health trouble. They displace the nutrient-dense whole foods our bodies need to function; the hyper-palatable mix of fat, sugar and salt drives us to overconsume calories; they disrupt our gut microbiome; and they create an inflammatory environment as our body tries to protect us from these “edible food-like substances”. And that’s all before we consider the unknown cocktail effect of the combination of additives.
Though not causal evidence and some of the research included in the review was considered weak, and confounders like socioeconomic status or physical activity levels were not always adequately controlled for, it paints a bleak picture.
Unsurprisingly, findings like these can create food anxiety, though such research is designed to drive food policy not point the finger at individuals, explains Professor Felice Jacka, director of the Food and Mood Centre at Deakin University and a co-author of the paper, which was published in The BMJ.
Jacka and her co-authors are calling for change. Their desires include front-of-pack labels (like on cigarettes); restricted advertising and prohibiting sales around schools and hospitals; and making unprocessed or minimally processed foods as accessible and affordable as UPFs.
Now, without an effective food policy in place and with the food industry holding all the lobbying power and money, Jacka says, “We have a food environment that sets us up to fail.”
It’s not our fault that the current food environment is designed in a way that makes the food industry increasingly profitable at the expense of our health. But, when we become overly anxious about every single thing we put in our mouths – or the mouths of our children – it’s highly detrimental to everyone’s mental health.
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Many things in the environment can be problematic to human health, from UPFs to microplastics and persistent organic pollutants.
“That balance needs to be found where you recognise that you will do your best, but you will never be able to remove all your health risks,” says Jacka, whose UPF consumption is minimal, but who is not “panicked” about the ice-cream she enjoys on Friday nights or that there are some UPFs on her kitchen shelves.
They are also on the shelves of Louise Adams, a clinical psychologist specialising in problematic eating and body image. “I used beef stock cubes in my dinner last night – highly processed and full of all sorts of deadlies.”
While limiting these foods is sensible, fretting about them and becoming overly fearful of them is unhealthy.
“About 20 per cent of kids are displaying disordered eating and we have just a tsunami of food anxiety that’s driving eating disorders,” says Adams, founder of Sydney-based clinic Flourish and the online anti-diet resource the UNTRAPPED Academy.
“We think we are protecting the health of our kids, but the flip side of that overprotective response is creating anxiety and also a fascination with the forbidden,” she says.
These forbidden foods and other foods that are weighted with guilt become the foods our children are more likely to binge on later, she adds. If we are OK with the idea of sometimes rewarding our children, Adams questions the difference between a gold star, a sticker, a medal or a treat. Making a food reward different feeds “the food hysteria”.
So what to do? Experts suggest parents – and non-parents, for that matter – consider overall dietary patterns; discuss foods that help support us to be healthy and strong, rather than foods being “good” or “bad”; and aim to consume as diverse a range of unprocessed or minimally processed foods as possible (privilege, access and education play a significant role here).
In short, we should do our best but try not to feed food anxiety by stressing about the odd jelly snake, ham sandwich or occasional UPF that sneaks into our family’s diet.
“As parents and humans, having a relaxed relationship with food is just so protective,” Adams says, “both from a mental health perspective and from a physical health perspective.”
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