Western societies, particularly the US and UK, have been struggling with obesity for quite some time. Even many continental European countries now have the problem, whose “Mediterranean Diets” and healthy work-life balance used to be the envy of the world. Since the 1970s, survey after survey has shown increasing obesity and weight-gain across all sections of society, especially among children and the poor. There have been fierce debates over the causes and solutions for this health crisis—over the need to consume less carbs and fats; over the need for more exercise; over the need for tighter regulation of food and beverage behemoths; over whether this whole conversation is stigmatising and “harmful” for those living with obesity. For Third Wave “Body Positivity” advocates such as model Tess Holliday, a “plus-size” body is no cause for shame at all and must be approved as much as a traditionally understood “healthy” body. For Christopher Snowdon, Head of “Lifestyle Economics” at the Institute of Economic Affairs, a UK libertarian think-tank, the rise in obesity is down to the “sedentary lifestyles” of the population, and is not “the result of increased sugar and/or calorie consumption at the population level.”
In Chris van Tulleken’s book Ultra-Processed People, the rancorous debate over obesity is given the serious and sober treatment that it deserves by one of the most innovative—and fundamentally social—scientists that I have ever encountered. Chris van Tulleken is a doctor at the London Hospital for Infectious Diseases, and alongside his identical twin brother (and doctor) Xand, has made frequent appearances in the media analyzing the effects of diet on health and wellbeing. In the crowded field of popular nutrition, one might wonder what makes his book so different. Whilst van Tulleken presents compelling evidence that ultra-processed food as such is “bad for us,” he also presents his audience with a truly social critique. Even if he, an ordinary, well-educated man of no religion, refrains from calling out the social order as unjust or evil, he nonetheless describes how our food system is corrupt and in dire need of reform. As he writes in the Introduction:
When we think about food processing, most of us think about the physical things done to food—like frying, extruding, maceration, mechanically recovering and so on. But ultra-processing also includes other, more indirect processes—deceptive marketing, bogus court cases, secret lobbying, fraudulent research—all of which are vital for corporations to extract that money [from us.]
To briefly explain, ultra-processed food (UPF) is an edible substance that is typically wrapped in plastic and contains at least one ingredient you wouldn’t find in a standard home kitchen or grocery store. Whether it’s stabilisers, emulsifiers, gums, lecithin, or various “deodorised” oils (including palm oil), more than half of the American (and British, and Irish) diet is now made up of foods that contain unnatural ingredients. For children and the poor, it can be as much as 80–100%. Not only do many of these ingredients not appear in…
