‘One Bite and He Was Hooked’: From Kenya to Nepal, How Parents Are Battling Ultra-Processed Foods

This scourge of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) is truly global. Although their use is notably greater in the west, forming over 50% the typical food intake in the UK and the US, for example, UPFs are replacing fresh food in diets on all corners of the globe.

This month, an extensive international analysis on the health threats of UPFs was released. It warned that such foods are subjecting millions of people to long-term harm, and called for urgent action. Earlier this year, a global fund for children revealed that a greater number of youngsters around the world were overweight than underweight for the first time, as processed edibles floods diets, with the most dramatic increases in developing nations.

A leading public health expert, an academic specializing in dietary health at the a prominent Brazilian university, and one of the analysis's writers, says that businesses motivated by financial gain, not individual choices, are driving the change in habits.

For parents, it can seem as if the complete dietary environment is working against them. “Sometimes it feels like we have no authority over what we are putting on our children's meals,” says one mother from the Indian subcontinent. We interviewed her and four other parents from across the globe on the growing challenges and frustrations of supplying a nutritious food regimen in the age of UPFs.

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

Nurturing a child in Nepal today often feels like fighting a losing battle, especially when it comes to food. I make food at home as much as I can, but the instant my daughter goes out, she is bombarded with vibrantly wrapped snacks and sugary drinks. She continually yearns for cookies, chocolates and bottled fruit beverages – products aggressively advertised to children. One solitary pizza commercial on TV is all it takes for her to ask, “Can we have pizza today?”

Even the school environment perpetuates unhealthy habits. Her canteen serves sugary juice every Tuesday, which she anxiously anticipates. She gets a six-piece biscuit pack from a friend on the school bus and chocolates on birthdays, and encounters a snack bar right outside her school gate.

Some days it feels like the entire food environment is undermining parents who are just striving to raise healthy children.

As someone working in the Nepal Non-Communicable Disease Alliance and heading a project called Advocating for Better School Diets, I grasp this issue deeply. Yet even with my knowledge, keeping my school-age girl healthy is extremely challenging.

These ongoing experiences at school, in transit and online make it almost unfeasible for parents to restrict ultra-processed foods. It is not just about the selections of the young; it is about a food system that makes standard and promotes unhealthy eating.

And the figures mirrors precisely what parents in my situation are facing. A demographic health study found that over two-thirds of children between six and 23 months ate poor dietary items, and nearly half were already drinking sugary drinks.

These figures echo what I see every day. A study conducted in the area where I live reported that almost one in five of schoolchildren were carrying excess weight and 7.1% were suffering from obesity, figures strongly correlated with the increase in unhealthy snacking and less active lifestyles. Further research showed that many kids in Nepal eat sugary treats or processed savoury foods nearly every day, and this frequent intake is tied to high levels of oral health problems.

Nepal urgently needs stronger policies, improved educational settings and stricter marketing regulations. In the meantime, families will continue fighting a daily battle against unhealthy snacks – an individual snack bag at a time.

Caribbean Challenges: When Fast Food Becomes the Default

My circumstances is a bit different as I was compelled to move from an island in our archipelago that was ravaged by a powerful storm last year. But it is also part of the harsh truth that is facing parents in a part of the world that is enduring the very worst effects of global warming.

“The circumstances definitely deteriorates if a hurricane or mountain explosion destroys most of your crops.”

Before the occurrence of the storm, as a nutrition instructor, I was extremely troubled about the growing spread of quick-service eateries. Today, even local corner stores are complicit in the shift of a country once defined by a diet of nutritious home-produced fruits and vegetables, to one where oily, salted, sweetened fast food, full of synthetic components, is the favorite.

But the condition definitely worsens if a hurricane or volcanic eruption wipes out most of your crops. Fresh, healthy food becomes rare and extremely pricey, so it is really difficult to get your kids to consume healthy meals.

Despite having a stable employment I wince at food prices now and have often resorted to picking one of items such as legumes and pulses and protein sources when feeding my four children. Serving fewer meals or smaller servings have also become part of the recovery survival methods.

Also it is very easy when you are managing 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. Unfortunately, most educational snack bars only offer ultra-processed snacks and carbonated beverages. The consequence of these challenges, I fear, is an rise in the already epidemic rates of non-communicable illnesses such as blood sugar disorders and hypertension.

Uganda: ‘It’s in Every Mall and Every Market’

The logo of a major fried chicken chain looms large at the entrance of a mall in a city district, daring you to pass by without stopping at the takeaway window.

Many of the youngsters and guardians visiting the mall have never traveled past the borders of the country. They certainly don’t know about the past financial depression that inspired the founder to start one of the first global eatery brands. All they know is that the brand name represent all things sophisticated.

At each shopping center and all local bazaars, there is quick-service cuisine for every pocket. As one of the costlier choices, the fried chicken chain is considered a special occasion. It is the place Kampala’s families go to celebrate birthdays and baptisms. It is the children’s incentive 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 bring fried chicken for school lunch,” my adolescent child, 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 local quick-service outlet selling everything from fried breakfasts to burgers.

It is Friday evening, and I am only {half-listening|