Ultra-processed food
encourages children to purchase more readily available, alternative MPFs, hence encouraging them towards nutrient-rich calories.
The effectiveness of prohibition is questionable, as this would be incredibly difficult to enforce. While consumption may see a small decrease, it may disproportionately affect children from disadvantaged families who may lack the means to afford MPF. Unless accompanied by schemes to make alternatives more affordable and educate young people on how to integrate non-UPFs into their diet, we may predominantly see the difficulties associated with enforcing prohibition rather than significant benefits to those who are disproportionately affected by UPFs.
Policies to encourage consumption of non-UPFs
Provision of free school meals and education for school-aged children
In countries where the provision of schemes such as the UK’s ‘Free school meals’ are economically viable, children could be guaranteed at least one meal a day containing minimal to no UPFs, reducing the daily calorie intake and ensuring that children receive a nutritionally rich meal. This could help compensate for poor nutrition at home and teach children the importance of a balanced diet. Education on the matter can be implemented into national curriculums to ensure children are well-educated on how to achieve a balanced diet outside school in ‘home economy’ lessons like those offered in other countries. This type of approach is strong as it seeks to provide children with the knowledge and skills needed to guide themselves towards a healthy future. However, the saturation of shops with UPFs means that it remains much more convenient and tempting to purchase them and disregard what they learn at school. Furthermore, the cost of implementing schemes such as ‘Free School Meals’ is not realistic for many countries and does not guarantee students will continue this pattern of healthy food consumption beyond their school years.
Supporting alternative food economies
Governments, via subsidies, taxation and other policy tools, can promote food economies where UPFs are not dominant. This can be in the form of tax breaks for responsible investors who invest in corporations that do not seek to maximize their profits at the expense of their consumers’ health, or companies such as cooperatives, where members can direct the enterprise towards ethical business practices. These systems allow the interests of consumers to have a place in the food industry and challenge the dominant companies that prioritize profit maximization above all else. The approach attempts to tackle the institutional cause for the prevalence of UPFs, as mentioned by Wood et al. (2023) and proposes a different structure for the food markets. It is quite idealistic to believe that cooperative firms and socially conscious investors can achieve this. This would be because the cheaper nature of UPF means that it is more likely to be purchased over the potentially more expensive products of the alternative food providers, hence making it a financially poor and unsustainable endeavour.
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