Menu

Deficiency

Home / Posts tagged "Deficiency"
Kids and Ultra-Processed Foods (UPFs)

Kids and Ultra-Processed Foods (UPFs)

By Rob Hobson

What are UPFs?

Ultra-Processed Foods (UPFs) are food products that have undergone significant industrial processing and are often loaded with additives like preservatives, colourings, flavorings, and emulsifers. They contain ingredients rarely used in home cooking, such as hydrogenated oils, and protein isolates. Common examples include sugary drinks, pizza, instant noodles, ice cream, biscuits and some and ready meals.

How to Spot a UPF?

UPFs are recognisable by checking the ingredients list for items that seem industrially produced or difficult to understand. If the ingredient list is long, contains multiple additives, or includes refined substances like maltodextrin, modified starches, emulsifiers and artificial sweeteners the product is likely a UPF. A simple rule of thumb is that if the food contains ingredients you wouldn’t typically find in your kitchen, it’s probably ultra-processed.

The Impact of UPFs on Children

UPFs can significantly affect a child’s health in both the short term and long term.

Short-term effects include:

  • Nutrient Deficiencies: UPFs displace nutrient-dense foods in the diet, leading to potential vitamin and mineral deficiencies as well as weight gain if consumed excessively.
  • Digestive Issues: Lack of fibre, combined with high sugar and fat content, can result in gastrointestinal distress, including constipation, bloating, and diarrhea.
  • Energy and Concentration: The rapid blood glucose fluctuations caused by high-glyceamic ingredients like refined flour and sugart can lead to energy crashes and difficulty concentrating.
  • Behavioral Issues: Ingredients like caffeine and sugar found in UPFs such as energy drinks can cause mood swings and behavioral issues.

Long-term consequences involve:

  • Obesity: Continuous intake of calorie-dense UPFs contributes to weight gain and the development of obesity.
  • Type 2 Diabetes: Excessive sugar consumption from UPFs can contribute to insulin resistance, leading to an increased risk of diabetes.
  • Heart Disease: High salt and fat levels can raise cholesterol and blood pressure, contributing to heart disease risk.
  • Bone Health: low intakes of bone minerals such as calcium can impact on bone density. Some soft drinks, like Diet Coke, contain phosphorus that leaches calcium from bones when consumed in excess, also increasing the risk of low bone density.
  • Dental Health: High sugar content can lead to cavities and long-term dental issues.
  • Poor Eating Habits: Early exposure to UPFs can lead to ingrained poor eating habits, which are difficult to break later in life.

Causes of Nutritional Deficiencies from UPFs

Nutritional deficiencies can arise when UPFs replace nutritious foods in the diet. Although significant deficiencies are uncommon , suboptimal intake of essential nutrients can still affect children’s energy levels, growth, and immune function. Nutrient-rich foods like vegetables, whole grains, and fruits are replaced by low-nutrient UPFs, limiting children’s access to vitamins, minerals, and fibre.

Factors Leading to Poor Eating Habits in Teens

Teenagers, especially girls, are particularly susceptible to poor dietary habits for various reasons:

  • Peer Pressure and Social Media: Pressure to follow certain diets or trends can lead to restrictive or unbalanced eating patterns.
  • Busy Lifestyles: Busy school and social life mean teens often grab convenient, processed snacks instead of balanced meals.
  • Lack of Nutritional Education: Without a strong understanding of nutrition, teens are often influenced by advertising and diet trends.
  • Emotional Eating: Stress and anxiety can lead to overeating or the consumption of comfort foods high in sugars and fats.

Long-Term Effects of UPFs on Weight Gain, Cholesterol, and Obesity

UPFs promote weight gain and health issues through several mechanisms:

  • Caloric Density: UPFs contain high levels of sugar and fat, making them calorie-rich even in small servings.
  • Hyper-palatability: The ratio of sugar to fat in UPFs creates an addictive effect, leading to overeating by triggering the brain’s dopamine release.
  • Altered Food Matrix: UPFs are soft and lack fibre, meaning they can be consumed quickly and don’t provide lasting satiety.
  • Gut Microbiome Disruption: Certain emulsifiers and artificial sweeteners in some UPFs may alter gut flora, which plays a role in energy extraction and nutrient metabolism. More studies on humans are needed to investigate this further.
  • Inflammation: Chronic inflammation resulting from poor dietary patterns can increase the risk of obesity and other chronic diseases.

Managing UPF Consumption

Parents can take several steps to help reduce the impact of UPFs on their children’s diets:

  1. Set Realistic Goals: Understand that kids may struggle with peer pressure and advertising, so setting achievable dietary changes is crucial.
  2. Promote Healthy Family Habits: Encourage healthy meals at home and involve children in meal planning and cooking.
  3. Gradual Dietary Changes: Slowly introduce healthier alternatives to UPFs to prevent backlash or resistance.
  4. Positive Reinforcement: Focus on foods to eat more of, rather than demonising or strictly banning UPFs, to promote a balanced diet.
  5. Cooking Skills: Teach children to cook simple, versatile dishes and keep ingredients available for them to practice.
  6. Batch Cooking and Snacks: Have home-cooked meals and snacks ready to avoid reaching for processed foods.
  7. Address Emotional Eating: Recognise stress-eating patterns and offer comforting, healthy alternatives.

Conclusion

UPFs are a significant challenge due to their accessibility and addictive nature. However, with careful planning and gradual changes, parents can help guide their children toward healthier, more balanced eating habits. By promoting nutritional education, positive reinforcement, and a supportive eating environment, parents can empower their children to make healthier food choices that last a lifetime.

Are you and your daughters lacking iron in your diet?

Are you and your daughters lacking iron in your diet?

By Rob Hobson

Are you and your daughters lacking iron in your diet (download as a PDF are-you-lacking-iron-in-your-diet)

 23% of Uk women have very low intakes of iron in their diet (1)

46% of UK teenage girls have very low intakes of iron in their diet (1)

Iron intake in the UK

Food surveys show that most healthy adults get enough of the vitamins and minerals that are essential for good health but there are still gaps, most of which appear to affect women, especially teenage girls.  A lack of iron appears to be common in a significant number of females in the UK with 23% of adult women and 46% of teenage girls having been shown to have very low intakes. 

 

What is the role of iron?

Iron is a vital component of haemoglobin, which is a protein found in red blood cells that carry oxygen around the body.  This mineral is essential for healthy red blood cell production.  Iron is also involved in the immunes system, energy production, DNA synthesis and muscle function.

 

Iron deficiency

 Diagnosed nutrient deficiencies are not that common in our well nourished population and whilst low intakes may not result in deficiency they may still impact on your health and increase the risk of deficiency if not addressed.  Globally, low iron is the most common nutrient insufficiency and has a huge impact on the health of children as it has a key role to play in normal growth and development.  In this same groups of women, around 5% of women have iron intakes low enough to be classified as being deficient, which is a condition called anaemia.

 

Symptoms of iron deficiency

The symptoms of iron deficiency are listed below and if you think you may be at risk then the first course of action is to visit your GP who can run a blood test to assess your status.  If your results show a low level of iron, then you will be advised to take iron supplements such as Healthspan Iron Care (£6.95 for 120 tablets) as well as being given advise about the foods you should be including more of in your diet (listed below).

  • Unusual weakness and fatigue
  • Poor concentration
  • Pale complexion
  • Brittle nails
  • Muscle soreness
  • Reccurent infections
  • Always feeling cold
  • Breathlessness

 

Iron requirements for women

 Women have a higher requirement for iron, with a daily recommended intake of 14.8mg per day.  This is mostly down to the effects of their monthly cycle.  Pregnant women have a higher requirement for iron across their pregnancy and more so during the third trimester due to the baby’s growth demands.

 

Factors affecting iron status

Like any other nutrient, low intakes of iron can be the result of many different factors including dieting, illness (resulting in a lack of food intake) or following diets that exclude food groups such as vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free.  Other factors can impact on the body’s requirement for iron such as regular intensive exercise and can be a particular concern for elite or recreational female athletes.

 

Effect of medication and supplements

The prolonged use of certain medications, especially non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) that are used to treat inflammatory conditions such as arthritis, can also lead to iron loss through bleeding in the gut.  Whilst supplements such as a basic multivitamin and mineral can be a good way to ‘top-up’, they should be used sensibly as there are no added benefits to taking more than your body needs.  Excessive supplement use, especially individual nutrients and high strength products can impact on the absorption of iron, particularly calcium and zinc, which reduces the uptake of copper that is required for iron absorption.

 

Good food sources of iron

Maintaining a diet that is made up of nourishing foods as opposed to those that are highly processed is the best approach.  Red meat is the first food that people associate with iron and other animal sources include eggs, liver and mussels.  People that follow plant-based diets can glean iron from foods such as beans, pulses, dark green vegetables, oats, quinoa, tofu and nuts (meat eaters should also include plenty of these foods in their diet).  Other surprisingly good sources of iron that can be added to many dishes are dried herbs and spices that are highly concentrated in this mineral.  Fortified foods such as breakfast cereals and plant-milks are also another useful way to boost the amount of iron in your diet.  White flour is also fortified with iron in the UK, which is useful for fussy teenagers that refuse to eat wholegrain foods such as bread and pasta.

 

Foods high in iron (content given in grams per serving taken from McCance and Widdowson)

  • Grilled fillet steak — (2.3mg)
  • Fried calf liver (12.2mg)
  • Black strap molasses (4.7mg)
  • Mussels (6.8mg)
  • Kale (1.7mg)
  • Dried figs (4.2mg)
  • Soya beans (2.3mg)
  • Cooked red lentils (2.4mg)
  • Oats (4.72mg)
  • Cooked Qunioa (1.5mg)
  • Tofu (1.1mg)
  • Eggs (1.9mg)
  • Brazil nuts (2.5mg)
  • Canned Chick peas (1.0mg)
  • Canned Red kidney beans (1.5mg)
  • Curry powder (two tsp = 6g) (58.3mg)
  • Dried oregano (two tsp = 2g) (44.0mg)
  • Fortified breakfast cereals (bran flakes) (24.3mg)

 

 Increasing your absorption of iron

You can give your body a helping hand to absorb iron by combining your intake of non-meat iron-rich foods with a good source of vitamin C.  You can do this by drinking a small glass of fruit juice with your meal or including plenty of vegetables rich in vitamin C such as red peppers, cauliflower and dark green vegetables. You could also finish your meal with a small bowl of fruit, most of which are high in vitamin C.

Some food and drinks can negatively impact on iron absorption.  You should avoid drinking tea with your meals and leave a little time after you have eaten before you reach for the kettle as the tanins can lessen uptake.  Compounds called phytates found in wholegrain foods (such as bread) and beans (especially soya beans) can also impact on iron absorption, although this is really only a concern for people with particularly low iron stores.

 

How to include iron in your weekly diet

Given their increased risk of deficiency, women should try and include plenty of iron-rich foods in their diet to help boost their intake.  Below are examples of how you can introduce more iron into your diet (iron content given in grams per serving taken from McCance and Widdowson).

 

Breakfast

Scrambled egg (add turmeric) on wholegrain toast (4.6g)

Porridge oats (with soya milk) with chopped apricots and hazelnuts (4.3g)

Bran flakes (with skimmed milk) with sultanas and chopped apple (6.1g)

Oat and berry smoothie (3g)

 

Lunch

Chicken and avocado quinoa salad (9g)

Red lentil and tomato soup with wholegrain bread (7.5g)

Mexican tuna mayo (kidney beans, red peppers and chilli powder) wrap (3.5g)

Smoked salmon and cream cheese on rye bread (3.2g)

 

Dinner

 Beef and green vegetable stir-fry with noodles (9g)

Chicken and squash curry with brown rice (7g)

Black bean chilli with sliced avocado and quinoa (5.5g)

Roasted red peppers stuffed with lentils and feta cheese (7.2g)

 

Snacks

Homemade oat and date bars (2.3g)

Dried fruit and nuts (1.8g)

Yoghurt with nut and oat granola (1.5g)

 

References

  1. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-diet-and-nutrition-survey-results-from-years-1-to-4-combined-of-the-rolling-programme-for-2008-and-2009-to-2011-and-2012

 

Check out my blog on iron at Healthista 

Download as a PDF are-you-lacking-iron-in-your-diet