Campaign targets ultra-processed foods

A coalition of scientists and public health researchers has launched Fed UP!, a national campaign aimed at translating research on ultra-processed food into accessible public education and policy action.

The campaign’s June launch coincided with a new feature section in the American Journal of Public Health examining links between ultra-processed food consumption and chronic disease, cognitive impairment, addictive eating patterns, and premature death. The research also explores how tobacco companies used consumer psychology, product engineering, and marketing techniques developed for cigarettes to help shape the modern packaged-food industry.

Fed UP! argues that ultra-processed food is not simply a matter of individual choice or willpower, but a systemic problem driven by product formulation, aggressive marketing, regulatory gaps, and a food environment that makes highly processed products cheap, convenient, and difficult to avoid.

Its website will provide research summaries, explainers, videos, and practical tools for families, communities, and policymakers. The group says it is independent of food manufacturers and committed to peer-reviewed, conflict-free science, public education without shame, and stronger transparency and accountability around how food is produced, marketed, and regulated.

Read more: https://www.fedupmovement.org/