The narrative must shift away from individual choice on to structural factors
Over half of the global population will be living with overweight or obesity by 2035 if current trends continue, and more than 1.3 billion people worldwide will have diabetes by 20501; type 2 diabetes will account for most of the new cases, fuelled by changes in obesity and dietary risks.2 These trends are likely to have serious health, social, and economic effects, not least for low and middle income countries, which are forecast to bear the brunt of the increases. However, we already have evidence of the inequitable burden of obesity and type 2 diabetes, notably during the covid-19 pandemic when people with obesity and type 2 diabetes experienced poorer outcomes.3
In 2018, The BMJ launched Food for Thought, a collection exploring key questions around what we should eat to stay healthy and avoid disease.45 The collection showed how weak science, commercial influences, and conflicting media messages all contribute to making questions on nutrition so difficult to answer. Five years on, not only does nutrition research remain beset by these problems but rates of cardiometabolic disease—driven …