04/12/2025
Are we blaming people for a food system they can’t control? 🤔
A powerful new article in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology highlights a reality that affects all of us.
Kevin Hall, one of the world’s leading nutrition scientists, recently left the US National Institutes of Health after saying his research on ultra-processed foods (UPFs) was censored.
Why? Because his findings challenged the popular “UPF addiction = dopamine hits like drugs” narrative. His latest study showed that most people don’t get the dramatic dopamine spikes we’ve been told about. Meaning the story of UPFs is more complex than “our brains are addicted to sugar”.
But the real takeaway is bigger than dopamine.
Hall and journalist Julia Belluz, in their book “Food Intelligence”, show how our food environment shapes our choices far more than individual willpower ever could:
• Ultra-processed foods are cheap, everywhere, and aggressively marketed.
• Whole foods are often unaffordable. You can get 12 donuts for $0.99 vs four apples for $9.
• Industry incentives aren’t aligned with human, animal, or environmental health.
• And people living with obesity end up carrying the stigmatized blame for a system they didn’t build.
This matters for health. It also matters for equity.
When healthy options are inaccessible, blaming individuals is not only unhelpful, it’s not fair.
If we want better outcomes, we must look at what shapes them. Food environments = health outcomes. You can’t expect people to achieve long-term health if the system makes nutritious choices unrealistic or unaffordable. Value, when talking about healthcare, is created long before a person walks into a clinic, in their daily reality.
Right now, those crucial, health-maintaining options are working against people, not for them.
If we’re serious about healthcare and disease prevention, we must improve the food systems people live in. Because no amount of motivation or education can overcome an environment designed to undermine health.
We deserve policies, incentives, and environments that support better outcomes. For us all. 💚