Brazil is preparing a new diplomatic initiative at the World Health Organization to promote a global movement for healthy and sustainable diets by restricting the consumption of ultra-processed foods. The government and civil society will soon discuss the next steps in this effort. This is a timely initiative by the Brazilian government, but to achieve concrete results, it will need to be coordinated with other ministries responsible for public policies capable of making healthy food genuinely accessible to Brazilians.
The first step was taken in May of this year, during the World Health Assembly. Brazil presented a proposal for the WHO to develop global regulations on the marketing of ultra-processed foods, initially supported by France, Mexico and Uruguay. The intention is to draft a resolution to be put to a vote in 2027.
The proposal, initiated by the Ministry of Health, recommends that countries adopt evidence-based definitions and classification systems; restrict or prohibit the advertising, promotion and sponsorship of these products in spaces frequented by children and adolescents; and address new forms of digital marketing — including influencers, personalized advertising, electronic games and cross-border content. It also proposes annual monitoring of the population’s exposure to ultra-processed foods.
Brazil is well positioned to lead this agenda. The NOVA classification was created here by a team of researchers at the University of São Paulo led by Professor Carlos Monteiro. It distinguishes foods according to the nature, extent and purpose of their processing. Its merit was to demonstrate that the problem is not food processing in itself — cooking, fermenting, salting, grinding or freezing — nor even the industrial processes that have increased the scale of these age-old methods of food processing, such as pasteurization, canning, industrial refrigeration and controlled fermentation.
The problem lies in the manufacture of industrial formulations designed to be cheap, long-lasting, hyperpalatable and widely marketed, frequently as substitutes for fresh foods. In other words, this is a new and specific way of producing food that should not be confused with food processing and industrialization more broadly, as the ultra-processed food industry often seeks to do in its defense.
Rather than considering only isolated nutrients such as sugar, fat and sodium, NOVA has made it possible to investigate how the combination of refined ingredients, cosmetic additives, industrial techniques, intensive marketing and disruption of the food matrix affects consumption patterns and health. This approach has transformed the international debate on food. In 2019, FAO itself published a study by Professor Monteiro on ultra-processed foods, diet quality and health, based on this classification.
It is therefore unsurprising that the ultra-processed food industry has resisted the NOVA classification from the outset. More recently, this resistance appears to have taken a new form: not merely challenging the definition of ultra-processed foods, but producing or promoting studies that seek to separate ultra-processing from nutritional quality, obesity and chronic diseases.
A report commissioned by the International Food Information Council, a US think tank funded by some of the food industry’s largest players, compared more than 40,000 products sold in the United States and concluded that classification as ultra-processed does not, by itself, predict nutrient density. The argument is that certain cereals, breads or dairy products classified as ultra-processed may contain fiber, vitamins or minerals and cost less than less-processed alternatives.
This type of finding is merely a smokescreen. Nutrient density and degree of processing measure different dimensions. Adding fiber, vitamins or minerals to an industrial formulation does not necessarily eliminate the effects associated with hyperpalatability, rapid consumption, the presence of additives, the loss of the original food matrix or the replacement of meals prepared with fresh foods.
Nor can the existence of some ultra-processed products with less unfavorable nutritional profiles be used to absolve the entire category. That would be equivalent to finding cigarettes containing lower levels of a particular substance and concluding that their production and consumption no longer represent a collective problem. What matters is the overall dietary pattern and how it is evolving across the population.
A response to the industry’s challenges came from the series published in 2025 by Monteiro and other experts in The Lancet. By bringing together epidemiological, experimental and mechanistic evidence, the studies cited reinforce the association between higher consumption of ultra-processed foods and poorer diet quality, obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and other health problems. These findings provide a solid basis for guiding public policies to regulate and restrict the consumption of ultra-processed foods, while also encouraging further research and the continuous improvement of measures to promote healthy diets.
This agenda is not starting from scratch. Latin America has become an important laboratory for public policies aimed at improving food environments and preventing obesity and other chronic diseases. Chile pioneered the adoption of front-of-package warning labels and restrictions on the advertising and sale of unhealthy products in schools. Mexico, Peru, Uruguay, Argentina, Colombia and Brazil have also made progress on front-of-package labeling. Mexico introduced a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages, which was subsequently expanded and accompanied by similar measures in dozens of countries.
Chile and Mexico have also introduced restrictions on advertising directed at children. Outside the region, countries including the United Kingdom, France, South Africa and Thailand have adopted different models of taxation on sugar-sweetened beverages, while other nations have strengthened their rules on labeling, school meals and the protection of children from the marketing of unhealthy products. Today, more than 60 taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages have been approved around the world, according to the University of North Carolina’s Global Food Research Program.
Evaluations of these experiences show that no single measure can solve the problem, but a combination of measures can reduce the purchase and consumption of unhealthy products, provide consumers with better guidance, protect children and encourage the industry to reformulate its products. These experiences must now be systematized, expanded and disseminated as international good practices, adapted to different national circumstances and transformed into an international cooperation agenda. This is how Brazil shared its programs to combat hunger and promote school meals, public procurement and social protection, inspiring initiatives in several countries. We can do the same to promote healthy diets, with the support and leadership of both WHO and FAO.
In this regard, addressing ultra-processed foods should be incorporated as one of the pillars of the One Health agenda, which is based on the interdependence of human, animal, plant and environmental health.
At WHO, progress in this direction was made during the One Health Summit in April 2026, which included a dedicated session on ultra-processed foods, action and accountability. The debate showed that their impacts extend beyond nutrition to production chains, natural-resource use, packaging, waste, exposure to chemicals and the governance of agrifood systems itself.
At FAO, the Global Conference on One Health in Agrifood Systems, scheduled to take place in Rome at the end of September 2026, will offer an opportunity to deepen this integration. Agrifood systems cannot remain an appendix to the One Health agenda: they must be placed at its very center. This involves not only regulating unhealthy products, but also promoting diversified and sustainable production systems, protecting biodiversity and building food environments that favor healthy choices.
This diplomatic agenda must therefore coordinate the complementary work of WHO and FAO. To succeed, Brazil’s initiative will need to be multidisciplinary, multisectoral and interministerial. This is not a task for the Ministry of Health alone. It requires the participation of the ministries and agencies responsible for agriculture, social development, education, finance, the environment, trade, human rights and child protection.
Civil society must play a central role. The private sector must also participate, while respecting transparent rules on conflicts of interest and without being allowed to block or weaken public health measures.
Nevertheless, regulating and discouraging the consumption of ultra-processed foods could lead to increased consumption of other types of processed and industrially manufactured foods belonging to Groups 1 and 3 of the NOVA classification, thereby stimulating other segments of the food industry. According to an article from the aforementioned 2025 Lancet series on ultra-processed foods, Baker and colleagues found that eight major food corporations control 42% of all assets in the sector, encompassing factories, distribution networks, marketing strategies and thousands of brands. In this context, most food companies producing foods in the first three NOVA groups stand to benefit from restrictive regulations on ultra-processed foods, and their support for this cause should therefore be expected.
Alongside the regulation of advertising, labeling, sales in schools and commercial practices, it is essential to build a positive agenda encompassing public procurement, school meals, subsidized public restaurants, farmers’ markets, food supply in low-income urban areas, support for family farming and other measures.
The worldwide average cost of a healthy diet has reached 4.28 purchasing-power-parity dollars per person per day — equivalent to around 13 Brazilian reais today. For a family of four, the cost of the healthy food basket calculated by FAO amounts to an entire minimum wage, approximately 1,560 reais. In Brazil, around 45 million people — approximately one fifth of the population — still lack sufficient income to obtain a healthy diet regularly.
There is no genuine freedom of choice when fresh foods are more expensive, less accessible and require more preparation time, while cheap and heavily promoted ultra-processed foods are available on every street corner, supermarket shelf and mobile-phone screen.
Addressing the excessive consumption of these products therefore also means expanding access to real food and creating the conditions for every family to choose a healthy diet, without their income or where they live determining the quality of the food they put on the table.
This should be the overarching purpose of Brazil’s new initiative: to transform the promotion of healthy and sustainable diets into a global commitment, supported by WHO and FAO, capable of bringing together regulation, production, access and food education. More than restricting products, this is about expanding possibilities — so that real food is accessible and valued, and becomes the easiest choice for everyone.
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The author thanks Gustavo Torres for his contribution.
Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed here by the authors are their own, not those of Impakter.com
