Kids and Ultra-processed Foods: A Surprisingly Small Effect on Obesity

A new study finds high ultra-processed food intake leads to higher weight in kids, but not that much higher.

I have a love-hate relationship with ultraprocessed foods — those semi-industrial, nutritionally poor, calorie-dense products that line our grocery store shelves screaming at us with their bright colors and empty promises.

I hate them because, well, don’t they just seem emblematic of all that is wrong with our diets today — easy calories, over-salted, over-sugared, and just sort of unnatural.

But I love them because I have kids and well, they’re easy. I know, I’m a bad parent.

So I was struck by this study, in JAMA Pediatrics, examining the effect of ultra-processed food consumption on body mass index, and other metrics in children. And I was particularly struck by the overall effect which was, well, not as big as I expected.

Researchers in England enrolled 9,025 children from 7 to 13 years of age and followed them for around 10 years. At baseline, they completed a 3-day food diary to determine how much of their diet was comprised of ultraprocessed foods. One weirdness here — they categorized this by weight, not calorie content. This was due to…