A June 2021 study by Imperial College London, said,
”We often ask why obesity rates are so high among British children and this study provides a window into this. Our findings show that an exceptionally high proportion of their diet is made up of ultra-processed foods, with one in five children consuming 78% of their calories from ultra-processed foods.”
"Through a lack of regulation, and enabling the low cost and ready availability of these foods, we are damaging our children's long-term health. We urgently need effective policy change to redress the balance, to protect the health of children and reduce the proportion of these foods in their diet."
"One of the key things we uncover here is a dose-response relationship. This means that it's not only the children who eat the most ultra-processed foods have the worst weight gain, but also the more they eat, the worse this gets."
"Childhood is a critical time when food preferences and eating habits are formed with long-lasting effects on health. We know that if children have an unhealthy weight early in life, this tends to trace into adolescence and then adulthood. We also know that an excessive consumption of ultra-processed foods is linked to a number of health issues including being overweight or obese, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, type two diabetes and cancer later in life, so the implications are enormous."
"Today in Britain, two in every three calories consumed amongst children and adolescents is derived from this group [of ultra-processed foods]. They're everywhere, they're cheap, and they're heavily marketed. So they're very difficult to resist and very difficult to avoid."