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

This scourge of industrially manufactured edible products is an international crisis. While their use is notably greater in the west, making up over 50% the average diet in the UK and the US, for example, UPFs are taking the place of fresh food in diets on every continent.

This month, a comprehensive global study on the dangers to well-being of UPFs was published. It alerted that such foods are exposing millions of people to chronic damage, and demanded swift intervention. Earlier this year, an international child welfare organization revealed that an increased count of kids around the world were obese than malnourished for the initial instance, as junk food floods diets, with the sharpest climbs in developing nations.

Carlos Monteiro, an academic specializing in dietary health at the University of São Paulo, and one of the analysis's writers, says that companies focused on earnings, not personal decisions, are driving the transformation in dietary behavior.

For parents, it can feel like the whole nutritional landscape is working against them. “On occasion it feels like we have absolutely no power over what we are placing onto our child's dish,” says one mother from South Asia. We interviewed her and four other parents from around the world on the expanding hurdles and annoyances of providing a healthy diet in the era of ultra-processing.

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

Bringing up a child in this South Asian country today often feels like battling an uphill struggle, especially when it comes to food. I make food at home as much as I can, but the moment my daughter steps outside, she is encircled by colorfully presented snacks and sugary drinks. She constantly craves cookies, chocolates and processed juice drinks – products heavily marketed to children. Just one pizza commercial on TV is sufficient for her to ask, “Are we getting pizza today?”

Even the school environment encourages unhealthy habits. Her school lunchroom serves sugary juice every Tuesday, which she looks forward to. She is given 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.

At times it feels like the whole nutritional ecosystem is working against parents who are just striving to raise healthy children.

As someone associated with the Nepal Non-Communicable Disease Alliance and heading a project called Advocating for Better School Diets, I understand this issue deeply. Yet even with my expertise, keeping my eight-year-old daughter healthy is incredibly difficult.

These constant encounters at school, in transit and online make it nearly impossible for parents to curb ultra-processed foods. It is not simply about what kids pick; it is about a dietary structure that encourages and advocates for unhealthy eating.

And the statistics reflects exactly what families like mine are going through. A comprehensive population report found that over two-thirds of children between six and 23 months ate unhealthy foods, and 43% were already drinking flavored liquids.

These statistics resonate with what I see every day. Research conducted in the region where I live reported that 18.6% of schoolchildren were carrying excess weight and more than seven percent were obese, figures strongly correlated with the rise in junk food consumption and less active lifestyles. Further research showed that many Nepali children eat sweet snacks or manufactured savory snacks nearly every day, and this habitual eating is tied to high levels of oral health problems.

The country urgently needs tighter rules, improved educational settings and more stringent promotion limits. Before that happens, families will continue waging a constant war against unhealthy snacks – a single cookie pack at a time.

Caribbean Challenges: When Fast Food Becomes the Default

My position is a bit unique as I was forced to relocate from an island in our archipelago that was devastated by a powerful storm last year. But it is also part of the bleak situation that is facing parents in a part of the world that is experiencing the very worst effects of climate change.

“Conditions definitely becomes more severe if a storm or volcano activity destroys most of your plant life.”

Even before the storm, as a nutrition instructor, I was very worried about the growing spread of convenience food outlets. Today, even smaller village shops are participating in the change of a country once known for a diet of healthy locally grown fruits and vegetables, to one where oily, salted, sweetened fast food, loaded with artificial ingredients, is the favorite.

But the scenario definitely worsens if a severe weather event or volcanic eruption wipes out most of your vegetation. Unprocessed ingredients becomes scarce and very expensive, so it is really difficult to get your kids to eat right.

Regardless of having a steady job I am shocked by food prices now and have often turned to picking one of items such as vegetables and animal products when feeding my four children. Serving fewer meals or diminished quantities have also become part of the recovery survival methods.

Also it is very easy when you are juggling a demanding job with parenting, and rushing around in the morning, to just give the children a small amount of cash to buy snacks at school. Unfortunately, most campus food stalls only offer manufactured munchies and carbonated beverages. The result of these difficulties, I fear, is an rise in the already widespread prevalence of lifestyle diseases such as blood sugar disorders and high blood pressure.

Kampala's Landscape: A Fast-Food Dominated Environment

The logo of a international restaurant franchise stands prominently at the entrance of a shopping center in a city district, challenging you to pass by without stopping at the takeaway window.

Many of the kids and caregivers visiting the mall have never ventured outside the borders of the country. They certainly don’t know about the bygone era of hardship that led the founder to start one of the first global eatery brands. All they know is that the three letters represent all things sophisticated.

Throughout commercial complexes and every market, there is fast food for all budgets. As one of the pricier selections, the fried chicken chain is considered a special occasion. It is the place Kampala’s families go to mark birthdays and baptisms. It is the children’s reward when they get a positive academic results. In fact, they are hoping their parents take them there for festive celebrations.

“Mum, do you know that some people bring takeaway for school lunch,” my teenage girl, 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 popular east African fast-food chain selling everything from fried breakfasts to burgers.

It is the weekend, and I am only {half-listening|