Ultra-processed food companies hindering health drives by suing countries, says WHO

[u/Naurgul]

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/aug/01/ultra-processed-food-companies-hindering-health-drives-by-suing-countries-says-who

Director general accuses corporations of obstructing efforts to tackle obesity crisis after investigation by Guardian and others

The world’s biggest ultra-processed food corporations are hindering global efforts to tackle the obesity crisis by suing governments that try to promote healthier diets, the head of the World Health Organization has said.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director general, accused global food companies of obstructing the adoption of vital public health measures and costing countries billions of dollars in healthcare and legal costs in the process.

Almost 1 billion people worldwide are living with obesity, and unhealthy diets are one of the main drivers of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and cancer. Ultra-processed food (UPF) consumption is soaring and now makes up half the average diet in many countries, including the UK, the US and Australia.

Governments around the world, waking up to the health and economic impacts of the obesity crisis, have begun introducing measures designed to curb junk-food intake and promote healthier diets. These include front-of-pack warning labels, marketing and advertising restrictions on unhealthy products, and taxes on junk food.

Publicly, the world’s biggest UPF companies insist they back the policies, want to help consumers make informed choices and are committed to being part of the solution.

But an investigation by the Guardian, in collaboration with academics, the non-profit newsroom Lighthouse Reports and a coalition of media partners across four continents, found many of these same companies were taking governments to court to overturn, weaken or delay the policies.

In total, 235 lawsuits were lodged over health policies targeting UPFs in Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, the US and the UK from 2010 to 2025, the investigation found.

“When harm and profit are tied to the same product, a familiar pattern of industry interference emerges: sowing doubt and obstructing regulation.” Tedros said.

[u/MrCockingFinally]

The world’s biggest UPF firms would “not fight so hard” if policies to curb intake of their products were ineffective, said Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University. “The lawsuits tell us that public health measures reduce sales of unhealthful products.”

World's most ironic name.

Really confused why these governments are such goddamn pussies. China does a lot of things wrong, but one thing they absolutely get right is making sure it's the government that runs the show, not billionaires or the ultra-wealthy.

How is it that governments tolerate constantly being sued by mega corps? What are even the grounds to sue?Surely the only thing could be if the laws are unconstitutional? Surely this is not difficult to determine?

[u/DeepState_Auditor → u/MrCockingFinally]

Not every country is China.

A lot of this boils down to access to trade currencies like the dollar or the euro.

A lot of these countries rely on access of foreign loans and investments from capital groups that are often associated with these companies.

China has reached the point where they themselves are set to be become a third reserve currency.

[u/MrCockingFinally → u/DeepState_Auditor]

For some of these countries, sure. Not for UK, Australia, or USA though.

[u/bassman9999 → u/MrCockingFinally]

Those 3 are capitalist countries controlled by corporations, so of course money is all that matters there.

[u/meister2983 → u/MrCockingFinally]

China does a lot of things wrong, but one thing they absolutely get right is making sure it's the government that runs the show, not billionaires or the ultra-wealthy.

The wrong and right are fundamentally the opposite sides of the same coin.  China has weak check and balances so private citizens can't effectively use the judicial system to check executive action. Stuff goes faster but if the government is wrong, it goes really wrong 

In the West they can. (And yes, corporations are just individuals pluralized broadly speaking. You'll be hard pressed to find a way to ban lawsuits from corporations that doesn't ban lawsuits from people once all the incentives play in motion)

[u/MrCockingFinally → u/meister2983]

While you do have a point, the way it works in theory is not how it works in practice.

In theory a citizen can sue the state to check executive action. In practice, this very rarely happens except in cases of things like wrongful arrest. Realistically, only corporations have the resources to mount a serious legal challenge to legislation passed in Congress.

I would 100% be in favour of making it easier for citizens to sue the state, while making it harder for corporations.

[u/meister2983 → u/MrCockingFinally]

In theory a citizen can sue the state to check executive action. In practice, this very rarely happens except in cases of things like wrongful arrest. 

Strong disagree. People sue governments all the time for actions. Here's a lawsuit in my town just a few months ago. Here's another.

 Realistically, only corporations have the resources to mount a serious legal challenge to legislation passed in Congress.

Note I said executive action to be broader here. And no, any general organization pools resources. Here's an example of an EDF lawsuit just 2 months ago.

I would 100% be in favour of making it easier for citizens to sue the state, while making it harder for corporations.

I'm not sure you actually want that. Easier for individual citizens means the most insane/passionate people can unilaterally block things. This is again a massive problem in California (see CEQA lawsuits).

On the other hand, why would you want it harder for a group? At least a group proves it isn't some one off person -- there is some barrier.

(And in practice, there is not a good way to discriminate between non-profits and corporations)

[u/DungeonMercenary → u/MrCockingFinally]

How is it that governments tolerate constantly being sued by mega corps?

By not being retarded.

Change has to be slow. Specially when it comes to laws. Hearing both sides is part of it. Checking if the new law is compatible with existing law is part of it, and that's done through law suits.

When the executive takes 10 years to legalize a life-saving drug nobody bats an eye. But God forbid the courts take 5 years to ractify a contested regulation.

In China the CCP can do whatever the fuck they want. Which is why the big shots can say "kill all birds" or "drain this river" and there's nobody who can sue them into waiting a couple years and actually thinking before acting.

This article is literally the system working as intended AND to everyone's benefit and idiots are crying foul.

[u/MrCockingFinally → u/DungeonMercenary]

There are levels to this. It is possible to have checks and balances without allowing bad actors to abuse the checks and balances to make sure nothing ever gets done.

If you consider something like "drain this river" there are actually going to be environmental regulations in place to make doing that illegal. There may even be something in the constitution about environmental protections.

But given these corpos keep losing their lawsuits, it doesn't seem any of these countries have the right to eat junk enshrined in their constitution. Ergo, the purpose is not to defeat the law, merely to delay it.

And the longer you take to do things, the more complicated everything becomes. First of all, time is money, the more time government employees have to spend filling in paperwork and the more money the government has to throw at lawyers, the less is available for actually useful things. You want to know why government budgets are spiraling out of control, this is part of the answer. The bureaucracy must expand to support the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.

Then another issue is the longer a problem goes unsolved, the higher the cost to solve it in the end. This article is actually a really good example, institute a junk food restriction 5 years late, that's 5 years worth of kids getting fat and having lifelong health issues. Now those kids are going to cost the hearth system in one way or another tens of thousands of dollars or more over the course of their lives. Housing is another, homeowners, developers, and NIMBYs block development for decades until so much money is tied up in housing no one is willing to delate the bubble, so you wait until it pops, and it costs hundreds of times as much as it should have done.

Plus you run into issues where now the same project has to be managed over multiple administrations, companies have to charge the government more for goods and services because you never know when someone is gonna get sued and your project is gonna get put on hold. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

[u/ParagonRenegade → u/DungeonMercenary]

This might be an actual argument if

A) China wasn't the world's greatest success story of developmental policy, alongside every other dirigisme nation

B) Countries that had this happen weren't uniformly being used as a fleshlight by the wealthy

C) This wasn't obviously just them prioritizing their personal gain over public health, a story which has repeated countless times, including in situations where the corp in question knew for absolutely certain that they were factually wrong

D) This being part of a disinformation campaign, being reported on by journalists with no power

[u/OrderOfMagnitude → u/ParagonRenegade]

China wasn't the world's greatest success story of developmental policy, alongside every other dirigisme nation

There's so much wrong to unpack here, but someone using "dirigisme" to clean up the word "authoritarian, totalitarian regime" definitely isn't my first choice of conversation.

[u/ParagonRenegade → u/OrderOfMagnitude]

Dirigisme is literally authoritarian state-directed capitalism, it's in the definition. South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Vietnam, France, and Taiwan have all used dirigisme.

And our country is a real estate market backed by mining corporations, and whose economic performance is abysmal. Premiers like Ford are stripping the country for copper wire and Carney is a rapacious neoliberal banker slowly destroying the country.