[Editorial] Ultra-processed food: from first tastes to lifelong habits

Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) are everywhere. Our supermarket aisles, billboards, and offline and online media are filled with brightly coloured packages of sweet and savoury snacks, baked goods, ready meals, and sugar-sweetened beverages. Given their ubiquity and cheap price, it's unsurprising that the share of UPFs in diets has increased worldwide in the past few decades. According to UNICEF's 2025 Child Nutrition Report, 60% of adolescents globally and more than 50% of children aged 6–23 months in 13 of 20 low-income and middle-income countries surveyed consumed a sweet beverage or food in the previous day.