Translated by AIVersione italiana
Key points
4′ min read
Translated by AIVersione italiana
Two studies, presented recently at the International Congress on Obesity (ICO 2026) – the global congress organised by the World Obesity Federation in Mexico City – shed light on an aspect of the obesity pandemic that goes far beyond willpower. At the heart of it all is the way in which our bodies are literally ‘tricked’ by ultra-processed foods, and the human cost of this deception
A system designed to make us put on weight
The first study, authored by Boyd Swinburn, an obesity expert at the University of Auckland (New Zealand), is based on the ‘Synergistic Systems Theory’. According to the expert, the obesity pandemic can be attributed to the perverse interaction between two complex systems, both of which function exactly as they were designed to. On the one hand, the ultra-processed food industry; on the other, the physiological mechanisms by which our bodies regulate energy balance
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The ultra-processed food system, explains Swinburn, is underpinned by a series of interlocking mechanisms that reinforce one another: product development, marketing, the distribution chain and political economy. Overall, the model identifies as many as 22 positive feedback mechanisms that continually drive this system to grow, at the expense of ‘real food’. The result is that everyone, including consumers, ends up becoming ‘semi-willing prisoners’ of a system from which they derive some immediate benefits (convenience, price, satisfaction of taste), whilst paying a high price in the long term.
Organisation ‘duped’
At the physiological level, however, the energy balance system comes into play. Under normal conditions, our body precisely regulates calorie intake according to the energy requirements of our lean body mass. But ultra-processed foods – which are calorie-dense, quick to eat and designed to be irresistible – manage to circumvent this ‘balancing’ mechanism (between energy required and calories consumed), meaning we end up consuming more energy than we burn, without even realising it. This is what researchers call ‘passive overconsumption’. And this is where the most insidious trap springs: when weight increases, even significantly, the body reacts only slightly; when, on the other hand, you try to lose weight, the body reacts strongly, ‘slowing down’ the metabolism and increasing hunger. This is the so-called ‘ratchet effect’: an irreversible or one-way process, in which it is easy to keep gaining weight, but impossible to return to the previous level. In short, putting on weight is a piece of cake; getting the needle on the scales to go down, on the other hand, is extremely difficult, because it’s as if losing weight were a threat to be fought at all costs.
“If it were easy to resist the lure of ultra-processed foods, if they didn’t trick our bodies into making us put on weight slowly, and if losing weight were as easy as putting it on, we wouldn’t have an obesity pandemic,” said Swinburn, adding that action is needed on several fronts: by taxing sugary drinks, placing warning labels (the ‘traffic light’ system) on packaging, and banning junk food advertising aimed at children. Looking to the future, Swinburn points to GLP-1-based drugs as a tool capable of acting precisely on that ‘appetite dial’ that ultra-processed food keeps turned up to the maximum. ‘When these medicines become more widely available, their impact on the prevalence of obesity in the population could be significant.’
A hefty bill for the heart
And whilst Swinburn’s research explains the mechanism, a second study, published in the *American Journal of Preventive Medicine* by Virginie Hamel and Jean-Claude Moubarac of the University of Montreal, sets out the figures for this damage in black and white. The Canadian researchers have calculated that between 23 and 38 per cent of all cardiovascular events (heart attacks and strokes) in Canada can be attributed to ultra-processed foods (which, as early as 2015, already accounted for 43 per cent of the daily calorie intake of Canadian adults). In absolute terms, this corresponds to approximately 58,200–96,000 new cases of cardiovascular disease, 10,600–17,400 related deaths and hundreds of thousands of healthy life years lost each year. Perhaps the most striking figure concerns the potential reversal of this trend: if Canadians were to halve their consumption of ultra-processed foods, up to 8,300 deaths from cardiovascular causes could be prevented each year. These estimates were calculated for Canada, but are likely to apply to other high-income countries with similar dietary habits as well.
Canadian experts emphasise that the responsibility for this cannot be placed on individuals. ‘Education remains an important component of health promotion, but its impact remains limited in the absence of political and environmental support.’ Structural measures are needed, including restrictions on marketing and targets for product reformulation. And the experience of two South American countries demonstrates that this can really work. In Chile, warning labels have reduced purchases of high-calorie foods by around a quarter, whilst in Mexico a 10 per cent tax on sugary drinks has led to a 6.3 per cent drop in the consumption of ultra-processed foods.
The lessons from the two studies
Taken together, the research findings presented in Mexico City tell the same story, viewed from two different angles: on the one hand, biology explains why our bodies are unable to defend themselves against a diet deliberately designed to make us eat more than we need; on the other, epidemiology calculates the toll this takes on our health, particularly on the heart. The take-home message, therefore, is not to blame those who struggle to lose weight, but to shift the perspective: if putting on weight is almost ‘automatic’ and losing weight requires a superhuman effort, the real battle must be fought upstream, through policies capable of making ‘real’ food more accessible than ultra-processed food. Rather than simply looking at what’s on individual people’s plates.
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