Ready meals, sweets and burgers could be made a lot more expensive

Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) should be heavily taxed, with the revenue used to subsidise fresh produce, an expert has suggested. It comes amid calls that adverts for UPFs should be banned and products should come with tobacco-style warning signs.

UPFs, such as ready meals, fizzy drinks, ice-cream and processed meats, tend to be higher in fat, saturated fat and sugar, while lower in fibre, protein and micronutrients. Professor Carlos Monteiro, of the University of Sao Paulo, will discuss the hazard they present to global health at the International Congress on Obesity in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

He will call for adverts for UPFs to be banned or heavily restricted, as well as products being heavily taxed. “Sales of UPFs in schools and health facilities should be banned, and there should be heavy taxation of UPFs with the revenue generated used to subsidise fresh foods,” he said.

Prof Monteiro also suggests that public health campaigns to raise awareness of the dangers of eating too many UPFs should be done in similar vein to tobacco. “Both tobacco and UPFs cause numerous serious illnesses and premature mortality; both are produced by transnational corporations that invest the enormous profits they obtain with their attractive/addictive products in aggressive marketing strategies, and in lobbying against regulation; and both are pathogenic (dangerous) by design, so reformulation is not a solution,” he added.

However, medics argued that comparing UPFs to tobacco or cigarettes is “very simplistic”.

Dr Hilda Mulrooney, reader in nutrition and health at London Metropolitan University, said: “Taxes on sugar sweetened beverages in the UK have been shown to be successful in driving reformulation and changes in consumer behaviour, far