A new socially-focused study on ways to reduce consumption of Ultra-Processed Foods (UPFs) made a surprising, but gratifying discovery. Family and professional moral support, and food cost support can help cut UPF intake by half!
Sometimes the answer is right there under our noses. As my dear old dad used to say: “You want to lose weight? Just keep your mouth shut!” A good instinct, but harder than he probably thought for the food-addicted to do.
A complex of complicating issues
We all know that one of the main issues behind the popularity of UPFs is that processed food makers have purposely engineered their products to be instantly gratifying, and addictive. That wasn’t hard for them at all, considering we’ve known for a few years, now, that humans are hard-wired to crave Salt, Sugar, Fat – and more recently, alcohol.
The shocking overall result of that prevailing reality is, still other surveys have revealed that an aver-age of 76 percent of the food in our grocery stores and on our tables is now processed to some degree.
“Reducing UPF intake can be extremely difficult, because the food industry wants us to be hooked on UPFs,” agrees Dr Charlotte Hagerman, lead author of a new study on guided dieting, and assistant research professor at Drexel University. “The industry designs UPFs to be ultra-delicious, convenient, cheap, and constantly present in the US – even if not directly in front of us, then on our TVs, phones, and roadside signs.”
Dad may have been right!
But there’s now conclusive evidence that a new approach to dieting can help even the most severely food-addicted to cut UPF intake.
“During the two-month intervention, 14 participants worked with coaches with expertise in health behavior change at weekly group sessions that included one-on-one meetings, discussion and acti-vities,” Hagerman detailed.
Participants also received education about identifying UPFs and their harmful effects, learned acceptance-based strategies for coping with the cravings and withdrawal symptoms associated with reducing UPFs, and learned the importance of the household food envi-ronment for reducing UPF intake.
In addition, participants took part in individual meal-planning sessions and received financial sup-port in the form of a $100 grocery store gift cards.
What they found…
Hagerman’s team discovered that, by the end of the program, participants had reduced their UPF intake by almost half – both when measured as calories from UPFs and as the total number of UPFs consumed. Participants also reduced their calorie intake, on average by over 600 calories per day.
Specifically, sugar consumption declined by 50 percent, saturated fat consumption declined by 37 percent, and sodium consumption declined by 28 percent. Participants also self-reported losing an average of 7.7 pounds.
On the other hand… “Participants did not [exhibit] meaningful increases in their [fresh] fruit and vegetable consumption,” Hagerman noted. Which suggests that, if we want to improve dietary intake more wholistically, we may need to more strongly encourage people to eat such foods.
My take
This is all great news. And nothing the average person using their own common sense wouldn’t figure out in about 10 minutes of serious cogitation. But the whole idea of active, guided intervention relies on intense monitoring and ‘staffing’ support for participants.
Family member intervention was also cited as important to success of the overall exercise. ow many of us have a family member who’s motivated, available and dedicated enough to commit to such a role?
I think my greatest disappoitment with the new study’s findings is that participants, on the whole, didn’t take away from the experience a greater appreciation of the value and potential pleasures of fresh fruits and veggies. But I suppose that’s a dimension in which efforts such as our ongoing recipe and nutrition forums and features here at the Fab Food Blog can help!
~ Maggie J.