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Session: Ultra-Processed Food Consumption and Health Outcomes (Poster Theater Flash Session 3)

(PTFS03-06-23) Healthy and Sustainable Diets: Ultra-Processed Food Consumption and Greenhouse Gas Emissions in the US

Sunday, July 23, 2023
8:25 AM – 8:29 AM ET
Location:  Fairfax

    Presenting Author(s)

  • Rhea Jayaswal, BSPH (she/her/hers)

    Student
    University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
    Cary, North Carolina, United States

    Disclosure(s): No relevant financial relationship(s) with ineligible companies to disclose.

    • Co-Author(s)

  • SF

    Sarah Frank, SM

    University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
    Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States

  • LT

    Lindsey Smith Taillie, MPH, PhD

    Assistant Professor
    University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
    Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States

Disclosure(s):
Rhea Jayaswal, BSPH: No relevant financial relationship(s) with ineligible companies to disclose.
Objectives: Food systems are a key driver of climate change and poor health. A major food system shift over the last few decades is increased ultra-processed food (UPF) consumption. High UPF intake is extensively linked with poor diet quality and chronic diseases, but the environmental impacts of UPFs are less explored. We used a nationally representative survey to evaluate the association between UPF consumption and greenhouse gas emissions (GHGEs) in the US.

Methods: This is a cross-sectional study that uses the mean of two days of 24-hour dietary recall data from the 2007-2008 and 2009-2010 cycles of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Foods were classified by degree of processing according to NOVA. Participants were divided into quintiles of proportion of diet from UPF. As-consumed foods reported in NHANES were matched with GHGEs using the database of Food Recall Impacts on the Environment for Nutrition and Dietary Studies (dataFRIENDS). Dietary GHGEs were in kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalents (kg CO2-eq) per person per day per 1000 grams of food. Multivariate linear regression was used to test the association between quintiles of UPF consumption and dietary GHGEs. We also estimated the distribution of sociodemographic characteristics (age, sex, income, education, and race/ethnicity) by quintile of UPF consumption and GHGEs. All analyses were conducted in Stata SE 17.0 and accounted for complex survey weights.

Results: Diets with higher proportions of UPFs were associated with greater GHGEs. The estimated emissions for the lowest quintile of UPF consumption were 1.26 (95% CI: 1.18, 1.34) kg CO2-eq, compared to 1.80 (95% CI: 1.73, 1.86) kg CO2-eq for the highest quintile (ptrend < 0.01). People who were male, younger, had low-income, had low education and who were non-Hispanic Black were more likely to be in the highest UPF quintile. People who were male, had low education, and who were non-Hispanic Black were more likely to be in the highest quintile of dietary GHGEs.

Conclusions: Diets with a greater proportion of UPFs tend to be higher in GHGEs. Our results suggest that policies to reduce UPFs could have health and environmental co-benefits. More research is needed to understand the mechanisms through which UPFs are associated with GHGEs.

Funding Sources: Wellcome Trust