Junk food causing 'more damage to health now than smoking in 1950s'

THE damage done to the nation's health by ultra-processed food in our diets will be greater than smoking in the 1950s, an expert has warned.

- Giles Sheldrick

Cheap processed junk food is now so prevalent that medics fear a health catastrophe which will only be fully understood in the decades to come.

Nutritionists have likened producers of food laden with fat, sugar and salt and often with high levels of preservatives, stabilisers and colouring -to tobacco firms 70 years ago.

Doctor and academic Chris van Tulleken, who wrote the book Ultra-Processed People, said: "To get effective regulation after the realisation cigarettes cause lung cancer was a journey that started in the late 1950s but took 60 years. We basically have an unregulated environment.

Tragedy

"The food industry has near-total control over messaging, like tobacco.

"There are many similarities in terms of health harms and the companies that make them.

"It's both a tragedy and a catastrophe and, until we see regulation, these global giants will continue to profit from harm."