Ultra-processed foods and public health: Evidence of harm and of conflicts of interest in the food industry to evade regulation.

The global pandemic of diet-related disease is increasingly recognised as driven by financial incentives in the food system which drive the marketing and consumption of harmful food, including ultra-processed food (UPF). Despite international consensus on the harms of UPF and the adoption of precautionary policies by organisations such as WHO, UNICEF and governments in Latin America, UK policy response remains compromised by widespread conflicts of interest. These conflicts exist across government agencies, regulatory bodies, academia and media institutions, many of which are directly or indirectly funded by the food industry. Drawing parallels with tobacco control, the paper concludes that eliminating these conflicts is essential to formulating effective public health policy. Without structural change and the exclusion of industry actors from policymaking, rates of diet-related disease will continue to rise.