Event details
Join us for a conference reviewing the science and scope for new policy approaches to address the harmful impacts of ultra-processed foods
The concept of ‘ultra-processed’ food is a shorthand to identify a range of foods based on the degree and purpose of their industrial processing, which have been linked to an increased risk of weight gain and chronic diseases. Industrial processing in ultra-processed foods often disrupts the original food matrix and involves a large use of additives to increase shelf life, palatability, texture, visual appeal and other characteristics that typically play a role in consumer choices and habits. Ultra-processed foods are often heavily branded and marketed to create brand loyalty and increase consumption, with a major focus on young consumers and families with children. Ultra-processed foods are typically highly standardised and produced on a large scale at a low cost, with high profit margins that fuel intense marketing for their promotion and sale in a wide range of markets, causing a steady increase in their consumption in countries at all levels of income. Evidence of the contribution of ultra-processed foods to increasing body weight, obesity and chronic diseases has piled up from observational studies and at least one trial. Yet, governments have been struggling to devise and implement effective policy approaches to address the detrimental health impacts of ultra-processed foods. However, attempts to regulate or tax these foods in order to rebalance dietary patterns towards an increased consumption of minimally processed foods and away from ultra-processed foods have begun to emerge, amid major policy challenges.
Agenda
09:30 – Registration
10:00 – Welcome remarks (Prof. Franco Sassi, Imperial College London)
10:15 – Keynote: The state of the science on ultra-processed foods (Dr. Kevin Hall, NIH & Dr. Mathilde Touvier, Inserm)
11:00 – Break
11:20 – Keynote: The rise of ultra-processed foods in the global nutrition policy agenda (Dr. Francesco Branca, WHO)
11:45 – Panel: The scope for policy innovation: what approaches do we have for addressing the harms of ultra-processed foods? (TBC)
12:15 – Lunch
13:15 – Panel: Learning from country experiences (TBC)
14:15 – Coffee
14:30 – Panel: Overcoming barriers to the implementation of effective policies on ultra-processed foods (TBC)
15:30 – Concluding remarks
16:00 – Meeting close
Selected speaker profiles
Prof. Franco Sassi, Imperial College Business School
Franco Sassi is Chair of International Health Policy and Economics and Director of the Centre for Health Economics & Policy Innovation at Imperial College Business School. Previously he was a Senior Economist and Head of the Economics of Public Health Programme at the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Paris, France), and before that a Senior Lecturer in Health Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Franco Sassi's research focuses on the economics of chronic disease prevention and health-related behaviours, with a particular focus on the impact of fiscal policies on consumption behaviour. Prof. Sassi led the European Commission funded Horizon 2020 project Science and Technology in childhood Obesity (STOP), which over 4 years has produced over 60 peer-reviewed publications along with influencing WHO policy. He is a member of many international Committees and Technical Expert Groups, including, among others, the NCD Advisory Council to the Director of the WHO European Regional Office, as part of which Franco has contributed to the development of a WHO signature initiative on alcohol taxation. Franco has led major publications on alcohol and other areas of public health policy, including Health Taxes: Policy and Practice (World Scientific, 2022), Tackling Harmful Use: Economics and public health policy (OECD, 2015) and Promoting Health, preventing disease: The economic case (OUP, 2015).
Dr Mathilde Touvier, Inserm
Dr Mathilde Touvier is a Research Director at Inserm, principal investigator of the NutriNet-Santé cohort (https://etude-nutrinet-sante.fr/). She is a graduate of AgroParisTech and Doctor in Epidemiology and Public Health. After six years at the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety (ANSES) and one year as a visiting researcher at Imperial College London, she joined the Nutritional Epidemiology Research Team CRESS-EREN (U1153 Inserm / Inrae / Cnam / Université Sorbonne Paris Nord / Université Paris Cité), of which she became Director in 2019. She coordinates researches on the links between nutrition and health (e.g. PI of a European Research Council ERC Consolidator Grant 2020-2025 on the impact of industrial food, food additives and food processing on health), with >430 publications in this field. She is expert in several workshops, e.g. at the French National Cancer Institute (INCa), the Ministry of Higher Education and Research (France 2030 ambassador), the international network Global Burden of Disease, and she is member of the Scientific Council of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (WHO-IARC). She received the Inserm Research Prize in 2019 and a prize from the Bettencourt-Schueller Foundation in 2021. She has been appointed Professor at the College de France in Public Health for 2023.
Prof. Francesco Branca, WHO
Francesco Branca is the Director of the Department of Nutrition and Food Safety in the World Health Organization, Geneva.
He has been a Senior Scientist at the Italian Food and Nutrition research Institute where he was leading studies on the effects of food and nutrients on human health at the different stages of the life cycle and on the impact of public health nutrition programmes. He has been President of the Federation of the European Nutrition Societies in 2003-2007. Professor of Public Health Nutrition a the 1st and 2nd University of Rome in 1990-2005.
Dr. Branca graduated in Medicine and Surgery and specialized in Diabetology and Metabolic Diseases at the Universita' Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Roma and obtained a PhD in Nutrition at Aberdeen University.
Dr Kevin Hall, National Institute of Diabetes & Digestive & Kidney Diseases, NIH
Dr. Kevin Hall received his Ph.D. in Physics from McGill University and is now a tenured Senior Investigator at the National Institute of Diabetes & Digestive & Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, MD. His main research interests involve investigating how the food environment affects what we eat and how what we eat affects our physiology and the development of obesity. Dr. Hall has twice received both the NIH Director’s Award and the NIDDK Director’s Award, and is the recipient of the E.V. McCollum Award from the American Society for Nutrition, the Lilly Scientific Achievement Award from The Obesity Society, and the Guyton Award for Excellence in Integrative Physiology from the American Physiological Society.