• Posted June 4, 2026

Poll Finds Broad Support For Stricter Regulations On Ultra-Processed Foods

Top food researchers have teamed up on a special issue of the American Journal of Public Health to push policymakers for stricter action on ultra-processed foods (UPFs).

In a press call ahead of the issue's release, food politics scholar Marion Nestle underscored its "Do policy!" message accompanied by new polling showing "broad cross-partisan concerns" over the health harms of UPFs, STAT reported.

Pollsters surveyed 2,000 Americans – a mix of Democrats, Republicans and independents. A majority of respondents agreed that UPFs are addictive and a major cause of obesity, type 2 diabetes and heart disease, according to STAT.

Most also support government interventions such as testing additives for safety before allowing them in food products, banning artificial dyes, requiring warning labels and pushing food companies to reduce the amount of sugar and salt in their products.

“In this polarized era where Americans disagree on so much, this is actually something where we’re seeing a lot of agreement and public support, which should be a catalyst for policymakers,” Lindsey Smith Taillie told STAT. She’s a nutrition epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Public Health in Chapel Hill,.

Despite broad cross-partisan concerns and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s focus on UPFs, experts say the government is not taking enough action against the food industry.

Nestle said Kennedy's Make America Healthy Again movement is not science-based.

"They’re a feelings-based movement, and they believe personal experience is much more important than what the science says,” she said. 

She said that while the movement is doing some things right —  like working to get certain additives, artificial dyes and glyphosate out of the food supply — federal action is still lacking.

In her paper for the special issue, Nestle noted that the government’s new dietary guidelines attempt to place responsibility on the individual rather than the food industry.

"When individuals are deemed entirely responsible for their own dietary intake, government policies need focus only on education," Nestle wrote. "If objections to the guidelines from the food industry have been mild so far, it is surely because its leaders know that education is not enough to change dietary behavior.

"They much prefer education to policies aimed at regulating product contents and marketing," she continued. "But to really help people reduce intake of ultraprocessed foods, we need a wide range of policy options — taxes, subsidies, marketing, procurement, product placement — aimed at making healthier foods more available, accessible and affordable."

The special issue includes 17 articles, including new research on topics such as how cigarette marketing strategies were redeployed to develop Lunchables in the '80s and '90s, as well as a study on a potential link between UPF consumption and dementia in older adults.

Also featured are strategies to combat the dominance of UPFs in the American diet and suggested policies to make produce more accessible and affordable. 

For example, this could involve redirecting resources saved from bans in 22 states on using food stamps to buy soda and candy to subsidizing local farmers, said Laura Schmidt, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, who focuses on the root causes of chronic disease. 

“There are some real missed opportunities,” she told STAT.

More information

Johns Hopkins University has more on ultra-processed foods.

SOURCES: STAT, June 3, 2026; American Journal of Public Health, June 3, 2026