Poor diet is the biggest cause of avoidable illness and premature death in high-income countries. Our food system is broken, say Henry Dimbleby and Jemima Lewis.
IN 1950, less than 1 per cent of the UK population was clinically obese. Today, that figure stands at 28 per cent. How did this happen? Did the British public suffer a massive collapse of willpower? Of course not. Humans haven’t changed. The food system has.
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| Michelle D’urbano |
Many people find it hard to imagine that a food “system” really exists, let alone that it could be shaping their own dietary habits. This is because we live deep in this vast, complex machinery of supply and demand, and struggle to see it as a whole. Our new book, Ravenous, aims to go behind the scenes: to show you how the system works, and your place in it.
Let’s start with one, crucial cog: the human appetite. Biologically, we are still hunter-gatherers. If you have to search for your food, it makes sense to prioritise things that will give you more calories than you expend. When we eat sugary, fatty foods, our taste buds respond with intense pleasure – a natural feedback mechanism to reward us for finding such a bountiful source of energy. This effect is strongest when sugar and fat are combined in a ratio of 2:1, the ratio found in breast milk.
It used to be hard work to find this kind of food. But in the second half of the 20th century, new methods of farming and manufacturing dramatically increased global food production. Since this “green revolution” in agriculture, highly calorific food has become so cheap and ubiquitous in much of the world it is hard to avoid eating it.
The green revolution has created an abundance of sugar, flour and vegetable oil. Companies heavily invest in developing and promoting foods made from these ingredients. They hack our appetite in foods like biscuits and cakes using the 2:1 ratio, knowing we find it irresistible.
Ultra-processed, packaged food now makes up more than half of the British diet – more than any other European nation. This kind of food contains little water and insoluble fibre, so it takes longer for us to feel full. As a result, we eat more of it and, because each mouthful is more calorific and less nutritious, it makes us fat and ill. Poor diet is now the biggest cause of avoidable illness and death in high-income countries.
In systems terms, we are stuck in a reinforcing feedback loop. Let’s call it the Junk Food Cycle. We have a predilection for calorie-dense foods, which means food companies invest more in making and marketing these foods, which makes us eat more of them and expands the market. The food companies are trapped too. If they stop selling unhealthy foods, their shareholders will be angry.
We only need to look at the US to see where the UK is heading. Almost 70 per cent of US adults are now overweight or obese and life expectancy has been falling in recent years, in part due to the illnesses caused by junk food.
The UK is always quick to follow US trends, including the obviously destructive ones. The people living in the UK’s most deprived areas – who tend to eat the most cheap, highly-processed food – are now starting to die earlier, and spend more of their lives in poor health.
There are two ways to escape this trap. The first is government intervention to rebalance the financial incentives in the system, such as taxing the sugar used in processed food. The second is to target human biology. A new kind of weight-loss drug, semaglutide, is proving effective at suppressing our evolved appetite. It is already used in the US and was recently approved for use in England, with the rest of the UK yet to announce their plans for it.
Such drugs can be a godsend for the severely obese. But they are a symptom of political failure. They wouldn’t be necessary if politicians intervened at a systemic level. It is the food system that is making us ill, and it is the food system that needs curing.
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