Americans of all political stripes want to regulate ultraprocessed foods. Is anyone listening?

By Sandee LaMotte, CNN

(CNN) — The ultraprocessed food industry is yet again under attack, and it’s not just MAHA moms or scientists who study food calling for change.

Some 77% of frustrated Republicans, Democrats and Independents are now calling for mandated “large warning labels” on all packages of ultraprocessed foods, or UPFs, according to a new poll.

Up to 70% of Americans want companies banned from advertising ultraprocessed foods on children’s television, while up to 87% want government safety testing for all laboratory-made chemicals long before they can be used in any food product, according to the survey published Wednesday in the American Journal of Public Health.

“Families are asking important questions about how food is made, marketed and regulated and how they can be a part of change,” said the survey’s senior author Ashley Gearhardt, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

A campaign to reduce ultraprocessed foods

To answer those questions, Gearhardt and a group of leading researchers have launched a public awareness campaign for Americans they call “Fed UP!” The website will provide consumers with explainers, research summaries, videos, social media content and practical resources to both understand ultraprocessed foods and advocate for healthier food environments.

The campaign will offer tips on petitioning local and state representatives for regulatory action and how to sway school board officials to reduce ultraprocessed foods in schools. Seventeen studies, editorials and reviews from a new UPF-focused edition of the American Journal of Public Health will also be available.

Corrective action by both industry and regulators is long overdue, said Fed UP! scientific contributor Laura Schmidt, a professor in the Institute for Health Policy Studies at the University of California San Francisco.

“I started working on one of the nation’s first sugary soda taxes in 2009. It’s 2026, and as a society we are still not doing anything significant around this issue,” Schmidt said. “We are not regulating enough chemical additives that go into ultraprocessed foods. We don’t have transparency into how these foods are created. We don’t have a consumer warning label.

“Yet governments in South America and around the world have successfully been doing this and much more for years. In that sense, I’m fed up.”

While nutritionists found US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s statements on reining in ultraprocessed food companies encouraging, experts say the few actions taken so far have been disappointing. The Make America Healthy Again or MAHA Commission promised decisive action on ultraprocessed food by August 2025. However, the final report, released in September, only promised the government would “continue efforts” to define ultraprocessed foods.

“Unfortunately, the final MAHA report is all promises and has no teeth,” Barry Popkin, the W.R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Gillings School of Global Public Health told CNN at the time. “In my opinion, it shows the food, agricultural, and pharmaceutical industries got to the White House and won the day.”

Change may be difficult, Gearhardt said, due to the enormous amount of money spent by industry on lobbying efforts. In the 23 years between 1999 and 2020, ultraprocessed food companies spent $1.15 billion on lobbying, far more than gambling ($817 million), tobacco ($755 million) or alcohol ($541 million).

Dangers of ultraprocessed foods

The stakes of inaction are high. Studies have shown that eating just 10% more calories a day from ultraprocessed food — that’s about one serving — may be associated with a 50% higher risk of cardiovascular disease-related death. Eating more ultraprocessed foods may also be linked with a 55% greater chance of obesity and a 40% higher probability of developing type 2 diabetes.

There are also connections between ultraprocessed foods and Alzheimer’s disease and cognitive decline. A new companion study, also published Wednesday in the American Journal of Public Health, found almost a 60% higher risk of dementia for adults in the United States who ate the most ultraprocessed foods.

“Conversely, we found lower risks of cognitive impairment and dementia for high vs low consumers of minimally processed foods such as whole grains, fruits and vegetables,” said senior author Cindy Leung, an associate professor of public health nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, in an email.

Yet it’s hard to avoid ultraprocessed foods, as nearly 70% of foods on US grocery store shelves are highly processed.

A link between ultraprocessed food and addiction

Gearhardt, who specializes in food addiction, has coauthored studies that showed more than 12% of older adults in the United States — and 21% of women ages 50 to 64 are now clinically addicted to ultraprocessed food. Globally, 12% of children are addicted.

Her new study, published Wednesday in the AJPH, describes how the perfect combinations of sugars, fats and cosmetic additives can create an irresistible bite. Consumers are getting the message, she said.

“Surveys show the majority of Americans don’t trust these big ultraprocessed food companies and believe they are creating addictive products,” Gearhardt said. “They also believe these companies are targeting children so they will grow up addicted to these unhealthy foods.”

Industry’s message has always been that it’s a lack of individual willpower that keeps people from “eating just one,” Faber said. Americans swallowed that message for decades, guiltily convinced their growing waistlines were due to wanton overconsumption, he said.

“It’s not consumers who are to blame for the rise in obesity and diet-related disease. It’s the food,” Faber said. “There’s never been a more important moment for nonprofits to team up with scientists and other experts and help consumers avoid ultraprocessed foods that have been engineered to be literally irresistible.”

Carla Saunders, president of the Calorie Control Council, which represents manufacturers of no- and low-calorie sweeteners, dietary fibers, and reduced-calorie ingredients, told CNN in an email that reducing public health issues to “broad narratives about processing risks rather than nutrient content oversimplifies a far more nuanced issue.”

“Consumers need practical, science-based tools and a wide range of food and beverage choices that can help support healthier lifestyles, including options that add dietary fiber and reduce calories or added sugars‎,” she said. “Efforts to improve public health should focus on the totality of scientific evidence, balanced dietary patterns, transparency, education, and empowering individuals to make informed choices that work for their own health needs and lifestyles.”

A spokesperson for the Consumer Brands Association, which represents most major food companies, said that its members “provide access to the information consumers need to make informed choices.

“Companies adhere to the rigorous evidence-based safety standards and nutrition policy established by the FDA to deliver safe, affordable and convenient products that consumers depend on every day,” the spokesperson said in an email.

‘It shouldn’t be this hard’

EarthShare, a nonprofit charitable federation that mobilizes money from individuals, businesses and foundations, funds the Fed UP! project. Health advocacy organizations who partner with Fed UP! must be nonprofits who report no ties to industry. Scientific contributors to the Fed UP! movement must also be independent from food manufacturers and special interests.

Educational articles on the website, which were also published in the American Journal of Public Health, cover how the use of plastics by ultraprocessed food companies is harming health; how manufacturers are targeting minority and low-income youth; and how state attorneys general can use the tactics of the successful fight against tobacco companies to force change.

“It’s important to mention not only are these experts calling for regulation, but they’re also saying that we need to ensure that there’s an increased level of access to minimally processed diets so that we don’t lead to increased levels of food insecurity,” said Nicholas Chartres, an associate professor in the University of Sydney’s faculty of medicine and health and the scientific lead at UC San Francisco’s Center to End Corporate Harm. Chartres, who is the associate editor of the American Journal of Public Health, was in charge of the new ultraprocessed food edition of the journal.

This isn’t the first call to action by scientists studying ultraprocessed food. In late 2025, a series of articles in the leading journal The Lancet explored the depth of industry’s focus on profits at the expense of public health.

The 2025 articles were written by 43 global experts in nutrition — a number of whom are part of Fed UP! — and supported by the United Nations Children’s Fund, or UNICEF, and the World Health Organization. Authors called for a global effort to regulate the industry, with methods such as food warning labels, taxation, and laws to restrict marketing and advertising, especially to children.

“The food industry doesn’t want to lose their cash cow, so they’re willing to put millions into fighting government restrictions on ultraprocessed food as well as funding nutritionists who’ll say there’s no evidence of harm,” UNC at Chapel Hill’s Popkin told CNN at the time. Popkin coauthored two of the three Lancet articles.

The Fed UP! movement focuses on the US, where ultraprocessed food has taken a strong hold. According to the US Centers for Disease and Prevention, 53% of American adults get most of their calories from ultraprocessed foods. For children ages 1 to 18, the percentage rises to 62%.

“People should not require a PhD in nutrition science to identify ultraprocessed foods,” Gearhardt said. “We shouldn’t have to be in such a massively rigged system, where we’re all having to work so insanely hard to nourish our bodies — it shouldn’t be this hard.”

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