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September 2025 Newsletter: Ultraprocessed Foods & Childhood Obesity
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Ultraprocessed Foods & Childhood Obesity
September is National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month, making it a good time to focus on this serious health concern that affects about 1 in 5 children and teens in the United States, where more than 14 million young people have the chronic disease of obesity.
Childhood obesity increases the risk of multiple serious health problems that were once considered primarily adult health issues, such as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, joint problems, sleep apnea, and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (formerly known as nonalcoholic fatty liver disease). Obesity can also affect a child’s mental health, leading to issues with self-esteem, anxiety, depression, and eating disorders. Unfortunately, if left untreated during childhood, obesity and associated health problems can persist throughout adulthood.
Many factors can play a role in childhood obesity, such as access to healthy foods and safe places for physical activity, genetics, high levels of stress, and getting enough sleep. Another factor that is receiving increased scrutiny is the substantial percentage of calories people consume from ultraprocessed foods.
Read on to learn more about ultraprocessed foods and how they can contribute to childhood obesity and other chronic health concerns. Also, discover a few of Health Edco’s great nutrition education materials that are ideal teaching tools for educators to use to help young people understand the importance of limiting ultraprocessed foods.
What Are Ultraprocessed Foods?
Ultraprocessed foods are industrially created foods made with manufactured ingredients and additives, such as artificial colors and flavors. They tend to contain very little, if any, whole foods. Ultraprocessed foods also tend to contain added sugars, sodium, added oils, and preservatives. They are designed to be highly appealing in texture and flavor, but they are also high in calories and unhealthy fats while limited in fiber and other important nutrients. A few examples of ultraprocessed foods are colas and other soft drinks, ice cream and frozen desserts, fatty or salty packaged snacks, and packaged meats and bread products.
Studies suggest that diets high in ultraprocessed foods are linked to many serious health conditions, such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and mental health disorders. In fact, research has suggested that diets high in ultraprocessed foods increase the risk of dying from any cause.
According to data from August 2021 to August 2023, it was estimated that young people in the US ages 1–18 consumed almost 62% of their daily calories from ultraprocessed foods. Adults 19 and older consumed around 53% of their calories from ultraprocessed foods. Adults in the highest family income groups consumed the lowest percentage of their total calories from ultraprocessed foods.
With people of all age groups consuming most of their calories from ultraprocessed foods, and with young people getting the vast majority of their calories from ultraprocessed foods, it’s especially important for young people to understand what ultraprocessed foods are, how they are impacting their current and future health, and how to make healthier choices so they can grow into healthy adults.
Great Health Edco Teaching Tools to Teach About Ultraprocessed Foods
Featuring colorful, easily identifiable images of ultraprocessed foods, our kid-friendly Kids Ultraprocessed Foods Weighted Vest is a fun way to help young people understand how consuming excess calories from ultraprocessed foods can result in extra weight gain. Weights can be added to the vest in varying increments to simulate the look and feel of up to 15 pounds of excess body fat. Wearing the vest allows young people to experience how their mobility is impaired by excess weight. The vest is the perfect teaching tool to explain the importance of focusing on healthy foods (such as whole fruits and vegetables, lean meats and proteins, whole grains, and low-fat and fat-free dairy) while limiting their consumption of ultraprocessed foods as only occasional foods.
With appealing graphics, our Weigh Your Options Display highlights just how quickly weight gain can occur in just one month when daily snacks of high calorie, ultraprocessed foods are consumed. Five weighted models feature images of fries, potato chips, two vanilla sandwich cookies, a chocolate bar, and 36 coated chocolates candies. Each weighted model represents the amount of weight that can be gained by eating the snack every day for one month when the calories exceed an individual’s daily calorie needs. The accompanying tent card highlights the importance of making every bite count by focusing on nutrient-dense foods and drinks and limiting foods that are higher in the added sugars, saturated fat, and sodium that are typical in ultraprocessed foods.
In addition to helping young people identify ultraprocessed foods, our Junk Food Model Set Display offers helpful tips to make healthier food choices. The display features 10 of our realistic faux food models representing popular types of ultraprocessed foods. These foods are often considered “junk food” because they are high in added sugars, saturated fat, and sodium. Each model has an accompanying food card with nutritional information for each food. The two-panel folding display details the health issues associated with diets high in ultraprocessed foods—such as certain cancers, heart disease, and depression—and offers tips for making healthier food choices.
Our SpinSmart Nutrition Wheel can help young people understand the difference between healthy, whole foods (such as fresh fruits and vegetables, lean meats and proteins, and whole grains) compared with the ultraprocessed foods often called “junk food.” This interactive wheel includes 64 questions for grades 1–5 and 64 questions for grade 6–adult covering eight nutrition categories highlighting essential food groups, their nutritional content, and the importance of limiting foods that are high in added sugars, saturated fat, and sodium and low in dietary fiber and other essential nutrients. Encouraging cooperative play, players spin the wheel to choose categories, answer multiple-choice questions for points, and unscramble words for bonus points.
Nutrition Teaching Tools for Healthier Eating at Any Age
Healthy eating is key to overall better health at every stage of life. Health Edco has engaging nutrition education essentials to help teach audiences of all ages about multiple important nutritional concepts, from limiting ultraprocessed foods to reading food labels and managing portion sizes. Find just what you need by visiting our nutrition education section.
The information contained in this newsletter is not intended to replace the advice of a healthcare professional.
