Version 1
: Received: 4 March 2023 / Approved: 6 March 2023 / Online: 6 March 2023 (14:07:50 CET)
Version 2
: Received: 19 May 2023 / Approved: 22 May 2023 / Online: 22 May 2023 (14:20:35 CEST)
Hall, K.D. From Dearth to Excess: The Rise of Obesity in an Ultra-Processed Food System. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 2023, 378, doi:10.1098/rstb.2022.0214.
Hall, K.D. From Dearth to Excess: The Rise of Obesity in an Ultra-Processed Food System. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 2023, 378, doi:10.1098/rstb.2022.0214.
Hall, K.D. From Dearth to Excess: The Rise of Obesity in an Ultra-Processed Food System. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 2023, 378, doi:10.1098/rstb.2022.0214.
Hall, K.D. From Dearth to Excess: The Rise of Obesity in an Ultra-Processed Food System. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 2023, 378, doi:10.1098/rstb.2022.0214.
Abstract
More people around the world now have obesity than suffer from starvation thanks to our modern food system. Agriculture was transformed over the 20th century by a variety of technological advancements that relied heavily on fossil fuels. In addition, government policies and economic incentives led to surplus production of cheap inputs to processed food industries that produced a wide variety of heavily marketed, convenient, rewarding, timesaving, and relatively inexpensive ultra-processed foods. The energy available in the food supply increased much more than population needs, albeit with large inequities in food distribution and nutrition security. While most of the rise in per capita food availability during the late 20th and early 21st centuries resulted in increased food waste, a variety of mechanisms have been proposed by which changes in the increasingly ultra-processed food environment resulted in excess energy intake disproportionately in people genetically susceptible to obesity. As populations continue to grow, substantial investments in coordinated nutrition and agricultural research are needed to transform our current food system to one that relies less on fossil fuels, preserves biodiversity, ensures environmental health, and provides equitable access to affordable, safe, and nutritious food that reduces the prevalence of chronic diseases like obesity.
Biology and Life Sciences, Food Science and Technology
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
