Food policy is still regulating streets — we wrote to The Lancet about screens

Created on April 30, 2026

2026   ·   ultra-processed-food   food-policy   digital-food-environment   Cambridge   ·   research-journey

The Lancet ran a comment on ultra-processed food policy by Scrinis and colleagues — a strong piece that pushed UPF policy beyond reformulation toward fiscal, labelling, marketing, and retail measures. But the digital food environment barely came up.

This sat alongside the MPhil dissertation work on UPFs I was doing with my supervisors Mike Essman and Jean Adams at Cambridge. Reading the UPF literature in depth, then talking through what the policy frame still missed — with Mike, Jean, and other colleagues at the MRC Epidemiology Unit and CEDAR — made the gap feel obvious. Online food delivery platforms, social media food marketing, and algorithm-driven content curation are now major exposure pathways. Current food-environment frameworks don’t really see them.

I wrote a follow-up correspondence in The Lancet. The argument is simple: UPF policy needs an explicit digital track. Three concrete asks:

  • Algorithmic exposure audits for adolescent food marketing
  • Platform-level marketing regulation parallel to broadcast rules
  • Measurement frameworks that include view-weighted exposure, not just retail proximity

Correspondence in The Lancet, 2026: link. Pairs naturally with the TikTok exposure letter in Public Health Nutrition.



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