The Global Fight Against Junk Food: Parents from Kenya to Nepal Share Their Struggles

This menace of highly processed food items is truly global. Even though their intake is notably greater in the west, making up more than half the typical food intake in the UK and the US, for example, UPFs are displacing whole foods in diets on all corners of the globe.

In the latest development, an extensive international analysis on the health threats of UPFs was released. It alerted that such foods are leaving millions of people to long-term harm, and urged urgent action. Earlier this year, a major children's agency revealed that more children around the world were overweight than too thin for the initial instance, as processed edibles overwhelms diets, with the steepest rises in low- and middle-income countries.

A noted nutrition professor, professor of public health nutrition at the University of São Paulo, and one of the review's authors, says that businesses motivated by financial gain, not personal decisions, are propelling the change in habits.

For parents, it can seem as if the complete dietary environment is undermining them. “At times it feels like we have zero control over what we are placing onto our child's dish,” says one mother from the Indian subcontinent. We spoke to her and four other parents from around the world on the increasing difficulties and irritations of providing a balanced nourishment in the age of UPFs.

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

Raising a child in the Himalayan nation 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 instant my daughter steps outside, she is encircled by brightly packaged snacks and sugary drinks. She continually yearns for cookies, chocolates and packaged fruit juices – products heavily marketed to children. One solitary pizza commercial on TV is enough for her to ask, “Are we getting pizza today?”

Even the school environment reinforces unhealthy habits. Her school lunchroom serves sugary juice every Tuesday, which she eagerly awaits. She gets a small package of biscuits from a friend on the school bus and chocolates on birthdays, and confronts a snack bar right outside her school gate.

Some days it feels like the complete dietary landscape is undermining parents who are simply trying to raise healthy children.

As someone associated with the an organization fighting chronic illnesses and spearheading a project called Promoting Healthy Foods in Schools, I understand this issue thoroughly. Yet even with my knowledge, keeping my school-age girl healthy is exceptionally hard.

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

And the figures shows clearly what parents in my situation are going through. A recent national survey found that a significant majority of children between six and 23 months ate unhealthy foods, and nearly half were already drinking sweetened beverages.

These figures are reflected in what I see every day. Research conducted in the region where I live reported that almost one in five of schoolchildren were overweight and more than seven percent were clinically overweight, figures closely associated with the rise in unhealthy snacking and less active lifestyles. Another study showed that many kids in Nepal eat candy or salty packaged items on a regular basis, and this regular consumption is tied to high levels of tooth decay.

Nepal urgently needs stronger policies, healthier school environments and stricter marketing regulations. In the meantime, families will continue engaging in an ongoing struggle against junk food – an individual snack bag at a time.

St Vincent and the Grenadines: ‘Greasy, Salty, Sugary Fast Food is the Preference’

My circumstances is a bit particular as I was compelled to move from an island in our chain of islands that was destroyed by a severe cyclone last year. But it is also part of the stark reality that is affecting parents in a region that is feeling the gravest consequences of global warming.

“Conditions definitely worsens if a cyclone or volcano activity wipes out most of your crops.”

Even before the storm, as a dietary educator, I was deeply concerned about the rising expansion of fast food restaurants. Nowadays, even community markets are involved in the shift of a country once known for a diet of fresh regional fruits and vegetables, to one where oily, salted, sweetened fast food, packed with artificial ingredients, is the choice.

But the scenario definitely intensifies if a natural disaster or geological event wipes out most of your crops. Nutritious whole foods becomes scarce and extremely pricey, so it is incredibly challenging to get your kids to consume healthy meals.

Regardless of having a steady job I flinch at food prices now and have often turned to picking one of items such as legumes and pulses and animal products when feeding my four children. Serving fewer meals or reduced helpings have also become part of the post-disaster coping strategies.

Also it is quite convenient when you are juggling a stressful occupation with parenting, and hurrying about in the morning, to just give the children a little money to buy snacks at school. Sadly, most school tuck shops only offer manufactured munchies and sugary sodas. The result of these hurdles, I fear, is an growth in the already widespread prevalence of lifestyle diseases such as blood sugar disorders and hypertension.

Kampala's Landscape: A Fast-Food Dominated Environment

The sign of a major fried chicken chain looms large at the entrance of a commercial complex in a city district, tempting 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 historical economic crisis that inspired the founder to start one of the first worldwide restaurant networks. All they know is that the brand name represent all things desirable.

At each shopping center and each trading place, there is convenience meals for every pocket. As one of the pricier selections, the fried chicken chain is considered a luxury. It is the place Kampala’s families go to mark birthdays and baptisms. It is the children’s reward when they get a good school report. In fact, they are hoping their parents take them there for the holidays.

“Mum, do you know that some people pack fried chicken for school lunch,” my 14-year-old daughter, 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 cooked morning dishes to burgers.

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