The Junk Food Doctor: "THIS Food Is Worse Than Smoking!" - Chris Van Tulleken Ultra-Processed People

Van Tulleken distinguishes three food categories: whole/unprocessed (e.g., apples, plain milk), traditionally processed (e.g., butter, cheese, tinned beans, fermented foods), and ultra‑processed foods (UPF). UPF is made from industrial commodity ingredients (corn, soy, wheat, rice, palm, etc.) broken into powders, oils and syrups, then recombined with additives, flavors and texturizers to create branded, patented products. Across hundreds of prospective studies, high UPF intake is consistently linked with obesity, cardiovascular disease, cancers, fatty liver, inflammatory bowel disease, depression, dementia, frailty and early death.

Food scientists continuously A/B test formulations: whichever version is eaten faster in focus groups goes to market because eating 5% quicker means 5% more sales. Products are soft, energy‑dense, quickly consumed and highly flavored, undermining satiety signals so you keep eating before you feel full. Brain scans from van Tulleken’s own 80%‑UPF diet showed increased connectivity between habit and reward regions; hormone tests showed hunger hormones remaining high after meals. Many people exhibit classic addiction criteria with UPF: continued use despite known harm and repeated failed attempts to cut down.

Obesity rates across all demographics inflected sharply upward around 1975, coinciding with the global spread of industrialized American‑style diets—not a sudden, universal collapse in willpower. Twin and genetic studies show that obesity genes are much more likely to be expressed in deprived environments. Willpower, where it’s been studied, often tracks poverty (e.g., the marshmallow test effect disappears when you control for maternal education). Van Tulleken argues that nagging individuals about discipline is “morally, scientifically and economically redundant” compared to changing the food environment and reducing poverty.

Low‑income families often lack not just money but time, fridges, freezers, ovens, pans, knives, and storage needed for batch cooking whole foods. Asylum seekers van Tulleken treats live on about £8 per day and often can only use a microwave; for them, cheap UPF is the only practical option. Economists and social scientists show that when poor people are simply given money, they overwhelmingly make healthier choices; rich people avoid bad food because they don’t want it, not because they are more virtuous. He estimates that eliminating poverty would remove roughly 60% of diet‑related disease burden.

UK traffic‑light labels (fat, saturated fat, sugar, salt) allow products like Diet Coke to appear fully ‘green’ despite containing artificial sweeteners, phosphoric acid that can leach minerals from bones, caffeine and confusing “natural flavors.” Cheerios, Coco Pops, Actimel and supermarket breads carry health halos via whole‑grain claims, added vitamins or immune support messages, yet they are UPF that kids and adults can easily overeat. Van Tulleken notes that truly whole foods (broccoli, milk, eggs, steak) rarely carry health claims because there’s no intellectual property and little marketing budget behind them.