Improving children’s health: the critical role of nutrition and the impact of ultra-processed foods

The health of children in England is in decline. While many factors are at play – including a rise in poverty fuelling food insecurity – it is not only how much food our children are eating (whether that’s too much food or not enough), but what they are eating that is playing a huge part in the rise of preventable illness in children.

In April, The King’s Fund set out a series of actions government should take to improve children’s health and wellbeing – with a number of these recommendations centred around improving children’s nutrition.

Nutrition plays a crucial role in the prevention of illness, and to quote a group of experts (including GPs, public health specialists, and professionals with expertise across infant feeding, education, and sustainable food) who recently met at The King’s Fund to discuss the issue: ‘everything goes back to nutrition’. Standards of childhood nutrition in the UK have been falling over the last ten to twenty years, leading to significant and far-reaching effects through the life course. Poor nutrition in childhood can cause both malnutrition and obesity, and is a significant risk factor for developing chronic illness in adulthood, including higher incidences of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and some cancers.

Recent public discussion around the impact of poor nutrition on children’s health – particularly the increase in the consumption of ultra-processed foods – has rightly been receiving more attention. Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) are those that have undergone a high degree of processing, and are made entirely, or mostly, from substances extracted from foods, food constituents, or synthesised in laboratories. Recognisable ingredients from unprocessed and natural foods are often minimal or absent in UPFs. Another feature is that they are engineered and marketed in ways that drive excess consumption – think adverts for highly sweetened breakfast cereals aimed at children, and junk food adverts on social media.

When looking at what children eat, some examples of common UPFs include breakfast cereals, mass-produced packaged bread and pastry products, flavoured yogurts, crisps, packaged snacks such as chocolate, sweets and cakes, soft drinks such as fizzy drinks and milkshakes, ready meals and ready-made sauces and spreads, cereal bars, and ice-creams. When it comes to UPFs in our diets, recent research is giving us more and more to be worried about, with multiple studies demonstrating that diets containing UPFs are linked to negative health outcomes, including an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, anxiety, depression, type 2 diabetes, sleep problems, obesity, and increased incidence of cancer.

It is particularly concerning then that UPFs are dominating the diets of babies, toddlers and children – with toddlers in the UK obtaining almost half (47%) of their daily calorific intake from UPFs, rising to 59% by the age of seven. Children eating more UPFs at the age of two are also more likely to be higher consumers of UPFs at the age of seven, as eating patterns in the early years set habits and preferences that can persist throughout the life course. These foods pose a serious threat to their health, development and wellbeing, and action is needed to change the landscape and halt the worrying trajectory of decline in the health of children.

A move that would signal progress from government on this issue would be for leaders to prioritise ensuring that food standards and labelling around UPFs are rigorously based on the most up-to-date science around the harms these foods pose and are causing to society. When Chris van Tulleken, author of Ultra-processed people, spoke at The King’s Fund annual conference in 2024, he mentioned the government’s nutrition advisory panel members. It was shocking to hear that more than half of the advisers have conflicts of interest in the form of links to the food industry – many of them companies that create and promote the UPFs that are harming the health of children. This is a powerful group that holds a large amount of influence over government policy. The food industry has a lot to answer for, and to consider going forward, if it cares about the health of the nation and the generations to come.