In the mid-1990s, Carlos Monteiro, a nutritional epidemiologist in Brazil, noticed something alarming: Obesity rates among children in his country were rising rapidly.
To understand why, he and his colleagues at the University of São Paulo scrutinized data on the food buying patterns of Brazilian households to see if they had changed in recent years.
The researchers found that people were purchasing less sugar, salt, cooking oils and staples like rice and beans, and more processed foods like sodas, sausages, instant noodles, packaged breads and cookies.
To describe that second category of food, the team came up with a new term: ultraprocessed foods, or UPFs, which they would later link to weight gain in children and adults in Brazil.
Since then, scientists have found associations between UPFs and a range of health conditions, including heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, obesity, gastrointestinal diseases and depression, as well as earlier death.
Persons:
Carlos Monteiro, University of São Paulo
Organizations:
University of São
Locations:
Brazil, UPFs