- Ultraprocessed foods are linked to liver disease and insulin resistance in obese children, with high consumption associated with metabolic disorders
- These foods are low in nutrients and high in unhealthy additives, contributing to poor health outcomes
- The prevalence of metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) is increasing among adolescents
- Insulin resistance is a key factor in metabolic health issues, underscoring the importance of choosing healthy foods
- Ways to encourage children to increase their intake of whole, natural foods are outlined below
(Mercola)—It’s long been acknowledged that obesity in American adults is a public health problem. However, there’s a related issue on the rise — childhood obesity. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), around 1 in 5 children and adolescents are now obese.1
Much of the reason for the rise in childhood obesity is the preference for ultraprocessed foods. An estimated 67% of calories in children’s and teenagers’ diets come from these unhealthy products.2 In addition, research is showing that these foods are causing liver problems in children.
The Threat of Ultraprocessed Foods to Liver Health
Could the ultraprocessed foods your child regularly consumes be silently fueling serious liver diseases? According to a study3 published in Nutrients, the answer is a resounding yes, depending on the food you give them. Specifically, high intake of ultraprocessed foods is closely linked to metabolic-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), insulin resistance, and increased adiposity in obese youth. MASLD is of particular concern. According to the researchers:4
“MASLD is a multisystem disease affecting various metabolic pathways and is strongly linked to insulin resistance and obesity. Mechanistically, fat overload in the liver may lead to the accumulation of diacylglycerol, which activates protein kinase Cε (PKCε), impairing insulin signaling and leading to insulin resistance.
Body fat, particularly trunk fat, promotes insulin resistance through increased hepatic lipogenesis, leading to metabolic disturbances in the liver. When insulin resistance occurs, the oxidation of fatty acids in the liver decreases, promoting further fat accumulation and worsening hepatic steatosis. This process disrupts insulin signaling in the liver and increases fat accumulation, triggering inflammatory responses.”
For the study, researchers selected 149 participants aged 8 to 17 years old who were assessed for their dietary intake using detailed food diaries. Other biomarkers were taken as well, such as body weight and blood results.5
To measure the liver fat percentage, a technique called magnetic resonance imaging proton density fat fraction (MRI-PDFF) was used. This noninvasive method provides a detailed image of the liver. A liver fat percentage exceeding 5% is typically indicative of MASLD.6
The study, which lasted six months from baseline through follow-up, revealed that higher consumption of ultraprocessed food was strongly associated with increased insulin levels, a hallmark of insulin resistance. Furthermore, the research established a clear correlation between ultraprocessed food consumption and MASLD.
Children and adolescents who had the highest intake of ultraprocessed food were 1.75 times more likely to develop MASLD compared to those who ate less. The risk was even more pronounced for moderate-to-severe MASLD, where high ultraprocessed food consumers faced over four times the likelihood of developing advanced liver disease.
Other Research Highlights the Growing Concern of MASLD
The Nutrients study is not the only one to notice the increasing cases of MASLD among the youth. A study7 published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism reveals that an alarming 23.77% of U.S. adolescents aged 12 to 19 years are grappling with MASLD.
Using data taken from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey between 2017 and 2020, researchers noted that participants with MASLD were also predisposed to other health issues, such as increased triglyceride levels, elevated glucose levels and obesity.
While the study didn’t go into the specifics of the cause, the answer is already right in front of everyone — ultraprocessed foods. Again, as much as 67% of a child’s calories come from these products.
Tips to Help Reduce Your Child’s Intake of Ultraprocessed Food
While kids enjoy the taste of ultraprocessed foods such as frozen pizzas and fish sticks, keeping up this habit will eventually ruin their liver health, as well as their overall health. Ultimately, your goal is to reduce — and eventually eliminate — ultraprocessed foods in your children’s diet, and this requires a multifaceted approach:
- Eliminate seed oils — Your first order of business is removing all seed oils. This ingredient is loaded with harmful linoleic acid (LA), which I believe is the most destructive ingredient in our modern diet today. A majority of ultraprocessed foods contain high amounts of LA, so make this your top priority.
- Replace ultraprocessed foods slowly — Gradually replace the ultraprocessed foods your child eats with whole foods. Start by replacing a snack or meal with whole foods, such as swapping out chips for fresh fruit. A slow approach helps children get used to new flavors without feeling overwhelmed.
- Get children involved — One powerful technique that will inspire children to eat more fresh food is by inviting them in meal planning and preparation. Let your kid choose recipes, and even shop for ingredients and cook the food. This way, they’ll develop a sense of ownership and pride in their food.By getting them involved, their willingness to try healthier meals will grow. Plus, teaching them to cook builds valuable life skills at a young age. Start by letting them with simple tasks, such as washing the produce, then move on to more complicated chores as they grow older.
- Change your family’s eating habits — The way your family eats during mealtimes will significantly impact your child’s consumption of ultraprocessed foods. Encourage them to eat meals together without distractions, such as TV or phones. Also, teach them to savor each bite of their food, as well as making them aware of their body’s hunger and fullness cues. This helps avoid mindless snacking while allowing them to build a healthy relationship with eating.
- Engage with the people around you — Community-based programs, such as food assistance benefits from local farmers markets, community gardens and cooking classes will contribute to a culture focused on whole-food consumption. These programs also increase the availability of fresh produce, which helps families to make better choices.
- Take advantage of technology — There are many available tools nowadays that help educate children and track their eating habits. For example, there are now apps that allow children to scan barcodes in food to learn about the ingredients in an engaging way. Some apps even go beyond by turning healthy eating into a game.
Removing Ultraprocessed Foods — The Foundation of Your Child’s Health
The evidence is clear — ultraprocessed foods will harm your child’s health in the long run. While designed to be convenient and appetizing, these products are wreaking havoc on their young minds and bodies, disrupting natural bodily processes, altering gut microbiomes and creating nutrient deficiencies. The health care costs are also alarming. According to the CDC, childhood obesity costs the U.S. economy $1.3 billion annually.8
While change starts at home, society must also walk in step to protect the long-term health of our youth. Advocating for policy changes, better education and environmental changes will result in a robust framework for reducing children’s consumption of ultraprocessed foods.9
- 1, 8 CDC, Childhood Obesity Facts
- 2 NPR, May 28, 2023
- 3 Nutrients 2024, 16(20), 3524, Abstract
- 4 Nutrients 2024, 16(20), 3524, Discussion
- 5, 6 Nutrients 2024, 16(20), 3524, Materials and Methods
- 7 The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, dgae553, Abstract
- 9 BMJ 2023;383:e075294
Bypass Big Tech Censors
Two Storms, One Harvest
Every food crisis in living memory has been a one-shock event. The 2008 price spike was a commodity bubble. The 2020 shortages were a logistics failure. The 2022 grain scare was a war on one exporter’s ports. Each time, the system bent, adjusted, and recovered, and each time the experts assured us afterward that global markets are simply too big and too diversified to fail.
What nobody in Washington seems eager to discuss is that 2026 is shaping up to be something the modern food system has never actually faced. Two independent shocks, one climatic and one geopolitical, are converging on the same harvest cycle at the same time. Not sequentially. Simultaneously.
Start with the weather. The Pacific Ocean is currently building toward what forecasters now openly call a record event. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of at least a strong El Niño near 88 percent, with roughly two in three odds it reaches “very strong” status, the tier reserved for perhaps three or four events in the entire satellite era. Every major global model now projects a median peak in Super El Niño territory, and most of them project it exceeding the 2015-16 event, which until now held the modern record. Sea surface anomalies were already brushing the super threshold in mid-July, months before these events normally peak. The atmosphere has already shifted into El Niño mode, and the event is forecast to crest in late fall and early winter.
This is not about “climate change.” It’s about the standard cycles of weather, and the cycle we’re currently in is one that has likely devastated societies in the past. We’re better prepared as a society today, but not all Americans are equally prepared.
Serious households have started doing the quiet math on their own. Grocery bills tell part of the story, and the forecast maps tell the rest, which is why long-term food storage has moved from fringe hobby to mainstream line item in the family budget, with established suppliers like Heaven’s Harvest seeing demand from people who five years ago would have rolled their eyes at the idea. That instinct is not paranoia. It is pattern recognition, and the pattern is worth walking through carefully.
Editor’s Note: Heaven’s Harvest IS a sponsor, but the warnings of this article are real and would be written even if we didn’t have a survival food sponsor. With that said, those who take advantage of what they offer can use promo code “Patriot” for 15% off.
The Fertilizer Clock Is Already Running
While the Pacific warms, the second shock has been unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran turned the world’s most important energy chokepoint into a contested waterway, and the consequences reach far beyond the gas pump. Roughly a third of global fertilizer trade moves through Hormuz, and the disruption sent urea prices up 86 percent year over year by March, with a 53 percent jump in a single month.
The World Bank projects energy prices rising about 24 percent in 2026 and fertilizer about 31 percent. By its own accounting, fertilizer prices ran 35 percent higher in the first five months of this year than the same period last year.
Here is the mechanism the nightly news will not explain. Fertilizer is not a grocery item. It is a time-delayed input. The nitrogen a farmer in Iowa or Punjab could not afford to apply this spring does not show up as a problem this spring. It shows up as a thinner harvest six to twelve months later.
The World Bank’s own food security brief concedes that the effects of reduced applications earlier this season “are likely to become visible only later in harvest outcomes.” Translate that from institutional language into plain English and it means this. The damage is already done, it is already in the ground, and we are simply waiting for it to arrive on the shelf.
Now check the calendar. Six to twelve months from the spring planting season lands us squarely in late 2026 and early 2027. Which is precisely when the strongest El Niño in the instrumental record is forecast to peak, bringing its signature droughts to Southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, northern Brazil, and South Asia, the very regions that grow the world’s rice, sugar, and oilseeds.
The World Bank warns openly that a strong El Niño “could disrupt multiple crop belts simultaneously” on top of the conflict-driven input costs. Their baseline projection assumes the Middle East disruptions ease by autumn. What in the last two years of Middle East history suggests that assumption is safe?
The System Has No Slack Left
The comfortable answer is that global markets always adjust. But adjustment requires slack, and the slack is gone. Global cereal production is expected to decline from last year’s records even before El Niño does its work. The UN World Food Programme, hardly a den of right-wing preppers, is calling this the most significant disruption to its supply chains since Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, and its supply chain director put the stakes bluntly.
Today’s supply chain challenges are tomorrow’s hunger crisis.
There is also a political dimension that markets cannot price. When food gets scarce, governments do not behave like economists. They behave like politicians. Export bans, hoarding mandates, and panic buying at the national level turned the modest rice shortfall of 2008 into a global crisis, and analysts are already warning that import-dependent nations are the first dominoes.
The 2015-16 Super El Niño, a far weaker event than what is now forecast, threw tens of millions into food stress across Africa and Asia. This one is projected to be stronger, and it arrives with fertilizer already rationed by price and shipping lanes already contested by missiles.
What Joseph Knew
Scripture does not treat preparation for lean years as faithlessness. It treats it as wisdom delivered in advance to those willing to act on it.
Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt.
Joseph did not respond to that warning with a hashtag or a committee. He stored grain during the years of abundance, and when the famine came, Egypt stood while its neighbors begged. The lesson is not that famine is certain. It is that the time to prepare is precisely when preparation still looks optional.
Nobody who filled a pantry in a year of plenty has ever regretted it, and nobody standing in an empty aisle has ever been glad he waited for certainty.
None of this calls for panic, and panic is the enemy of sound judgment anyway. It calls for the same unglamorous prudence our grandparents considered ordinary. Keep some cash margin, know your local growers, and put real food in deep storage while it is cheap and available, because the entire arc of this story is that cheap and available is a closing window.
Families looking for a straightforward place to start can visit Heaven’s Harvest and use promo code Patriot for 15 percent off long-term storable food. The forecasts may yet soften, the strait may yet reopen, and we should pray they do. But hope is a fine thing to hold and a foolish thing to eat.
