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The menace of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) is a worldwide phenomenon. While their use is particularly high in developed countries, making up over 50% the usual nourishment in the UK and the US, for example, UPFs are replacing fresh food in diets on all corners of the globe.

This month, the world’s largest review on the risks to physical condition of UPFs was published. It warned that such foods are subjecting millions of people to persistent health issues, and called for swift intervention. Earlier this year, a major children's agency revealed that an increased count of kids around the world were suffering from obesity than too thin for the historic moment, as junk food floods diets, with the steepest rises in developing nations.

A leading public health expert, an academic specializing in dietary health at the a major educational institution in Brazil, and one of the review's authors, says that profit-driven corporations, not individual choices, are fueling the shift in eating patterns.

For parents, it can seem as if the entire food system is opposing them. “On occasion it feels like we have no authority over what we are placing onto our kid’s plate,” says one mother from India. We spoke to her and four other parents from around the world on the increasing difficulties and annoyances of providing a balanced nourishment in the era of ultra-processing.

In Nepal: Battling a Child's Desire for Packaged Snacks

Nurturing a child in this South Asian country today often feels like battling an uphill struggle, especially when it comes to food. I cook at home as much as I can, but the moment my daughter leaves the house, she is encircled by brightly packaged snacks and sugar-laden liquids. She persistently desires cookies, chocolates and packaged fruit juices – products intensively promoted to children. Just one pizza commercial on TV is sufficient for her to ask, “Is it possible to eat pizza today?”

Even the academic atmosphere perpetuates unhealthy habits. Her cafeteria serves sugary juice every Tuesday, which she looks forward to. She gets a small package of biscuits from a friend on the school bus and chocolates on birthdays, and faces a chip shop right outside her school gate.

On certain occasions it feels like the entire food environment is working against parents who are just striving to raise healthy children.

As someone associated with the an organization fighting chronic illnesses and heading a project called Promoting Healthy Foods in Schools, I grasp this issue thoroughly. Yet even with my professional background, keeping my young child healthy is extremely challenging.

These repeated exposures at school, in transit and online make it nearly impossible for parents to restrict ultra-processed foods. It is not simply about the selections of the young; it is about a food system that makes standard and promotes unhealthy eating.

And the figures shows clearly what families like mine are going through. A comprehensive population report found that over two-thirds of children between six and 23 months ate poor dietary items, and a substantial portion were already drinking sweetened beverages.

These statistics are reflected in what I see every day. A study conducted in the district where I live reported that almost one in five of schoolchildren were carrying excess weight and more than seven percent were obese, figures closely associated with the surge in junk food consumption and increasingly inactive lifestyles. Another study showed that many youngsters of the country eat candy or salty packaged items nearly every day, and this frequent intake is associated with high levels of oral health problems.

Nepal urgently needs more robust regulations, better nutritional atmospheres in schools and more stringent promotion limits. Until then, families will continue engaging in an ongoing struggle against processed items – one biscuit packet at a time.

St Vincent and the Grenadines: ‘Greasy, Salty, Sugary Fast Food is the Preference’

My position is a bit particular as I was forced to relocate from an island in our archipelago that was devastated by a severe cyclone last year. But it is also part of the stark reality that is affecting parents in a part of the world that is experiencing the most severe impacts of global warming.

“Conditions definitely becomes more severe if a storm or volcanic eruption eliminates most of your vegetation.”

Prior to the storm, as a dietary educator, I was very worried about the rising expansion of quick-service eateries. Nowadays, even community markets are participating in the shift of a country once characterized by a diet of healthy locally grown fruits and vegetables, to one where fatty, briny, candied fast food, full of manufactured additives, is the favorite.

But the situation definitely deteriorates if a natural disaster or volcanic eruption destroys most of your vegetation. Fresh, healthy food becomes hard to find and very expensive, so it is incredibly challenging to get your kids to consume healthy meals.

In spite of having a stable employment I am shocked by food prices now and have often resorted to choosing between items such as vegetables and meat and eggs when feeding my four children. Providing less food or smaller servings have also become part of the recovery survival methods.

Also it is very easy when you are managing a demanding job with parenting, and rushing around in the morning, to just give the children a little money to buy snacks at school. Sadly, most school tuck shops only offer manufactured munchies and sugary sodas. The result of these hurdles, I fear, is an increase in the already epidemic rates of lifestyle diseases such as blood sugar disorders and high blood pressure.

Kampala's Landscape: A Fast-Food Dominated Environment

The sign of a global fast-food brand looms large at the entrance of a shopping center in a city district, daring you to pass by without stopping at the drive-through.

Many of the kids and caregivers visiting the mall have never gone beyond the borders of the country. They certainly don’t know about the bygone era of hardship that led the founder to start one of the first American international food chains. All they know is that the three letters represent all things modern.

At each shopping center and every market, there is quick-service cuisine for all budgets. As one of the more expensive options, the fried chicken chain is considered a luxury. It is the place local households go to observe birthdays and baptisms. It is the children’s incentive when they get a positive academic results. In fact, they are hoping their parents take them there for festive celebrations.

“Mom, do you know that some people pack fast food for school lunch,” my teenage girl, who attends a school in the area, tells me. She says that on the days they do not pack that, they pack food from a local quick-service outlet selling everything from cooked morning dishes to burgers.

It is the end of the week, and I am only {half-listening|