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 that are highly industrially processed, often using extreme forms of processing that disrupt the original food matrix, and involve 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 branded and heavily marketed to create brand loyalty, with a major focus on young consumers and families with children. The large scale of production of ultra-processed foods, made possible by the standardisation of their production, their promotion and sale in a wide range of markets, has caused 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 as well as experimental studies. 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 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)
10:45 – Keynote: The rise of ultra-processed foods in the global nutrition policy agenda (Dr. Francesco Branca, WHO)
11:00 – Break
11:15 – Panel: The scope for policy innovation: what approaches do we have for addressing the harms of ultra-processed foods? (TBC)
12:30 – Lunch
13:30 – Panel: Learning from country experiences (TBC)
14:30 – Panel: Overcoming barriers to the implementation of effective policies on ultra-processed foods (TBC)
15:30 – Coffee
15:45 – Concluding remarks
16:00 – Meeting close
Selected speaker profiles
Prof. Franco Sassi, Imperial College London
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 Kevin Hall, NIH
Forthcoming
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 >370 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 2022-2023.
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.