Asia's junk food craving intensifies

International brands profiting from increasingly unhealthy diets of the region's expanding middle classes

Public health expert Rob Moodie doesn't mince his words when it comes to fast and processed food companies and their contribution to obesity.

"Obesity is fundamentally a commercial success," says the professor at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne.

Moodie says Asia is the new target market for the multibillion-dollar processed and fast food industries.

"Having been the major drivers of obesity throughout the developed world, these companies are now focused on Asia and have been for some time," Moodie says.

"You see the superbly fit 'kings of sport' with fast food logos plastered all over them. When they play, do you think they eat or drink these junk foods and drinks? What we are seeing today is a repeat of the tobacco story as a public health issue but this one is bigger ... much bigger."

The companies pushing fast food, processed food and fizzy drinks have huge amounts of money to promote their products and fight any attempt to stop them, adds Moodie.

Early this year in Ho Chi Minh City, global fast-food giant McDonald's opened its first restaurant in Vietnam as it continues its expansion across Asia.

Major names such as McDonald's, Starbucks, Subway, Burger King, KFC and Coca-Cola are well known around the region where fast food is seen as a symbol of Western lifestyle, especially among the young and upwardly mobile new middle class.

It is not only fast food chains that are responsible for creating unhealthy diets. In most supermarkets you will find packaged processed foods that contain little or no nutritional value at all.

These foods, according to the respected medical journal The Lancet, are made from processed substances extracted or refined from whole foods such as oils, hydrogenated oils and fats, flours and starches, variants of sugar, and cheap parts or remnants of animal foods with little or no whole foods.

"Products include burgers, frozen pizza and pasta dishes, nuggets and sticks, crisps, biscuits, confectionery, cereal bars, carbonated and other sugared drinks, and various snack products," according to The Lancet.

"Most are made, advertised, and sold by large or transnational corporations and are very durable, palatable, and ready to consume, which is an enormous commercial advantage over fresh and perishable whole or minimally processed foods," the journal added.

Consequently, their production and consumption is rising quickly worldwide. In the global north, North America and Europe ultra-processed products have largely replaced food systems and dietary patterns based on fresh and minimally processed food and culinary ingredients that have less fat, sugar, and salt.

While in the global south Asia, Africa and Latin America ultra-processed products are displacing established dietary patterns, which are more suitable, socially and environmentally.

Global research company Transparency Market Research (TMR) said the fast food market was worth $477.1 billion in 2013 and is forecast to reach $617.6 billion by 2019.

In its analysis of global fast food trends 2013-2019, TMR said while North America was the largest market for fast food in 2012 "due to the preference for food on-the-go and demand for quick and convenient food in day to day life", Asia is a growing market.

"Fast food is very popular in North America and they have propagated the concept of fast food in other regions of the world," TMR said.

"Fast food varies from region to region, but some fast food categories are universal such as burgers, pizza, pasta, chicken and noodles among others."

Emerging countries in Asia such as India, China and Vietnam are some of the fastest-growing markets in the world for the fast food industry and are expected to experience double-digit growth between 2013 and 2019, according to TMR analysis.

The growth in these markets is supported by higher disposable income and demand for convenient, tasty, affordable food.

A report by ACNielsen, a global marketing research firm, said fast food in Asia is being consumed faster than in developed markets.

The report, New Market for Fast Food Industry in Asia, said with rising economic levels and changes in lifestyle, the fast food industry has now become "a new part of Asia".

According to The Lancet, in 2010, tobacco was estimated to have been responsible for 6.3 million deaths globally while alcohol accounted for 4.9 million deaths.

"In addition to the deaths caused by tobacco and alcohol, more than 18 million deaths every year are caused by high blood pressure (9.4 million), high body-mass index (3.4 million), high-fasting blood glucose (3.4 million), and high total cholesterol (2 million), much of which could be attributed to the consumption of ultra-processed foods and drinks," The Lancet said.

The consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks is associated with increased rates of obesity and diabetes, childhood obesity, long-term weight gain, and cardiovascular disease.

"Almost all growth in the foreseeable future in profits from the sale of these unhealthy commodities will be in low-income and middle-income countries," it said.

The saturation of markets in high-income countries and the high global average of income that people spend on food (20 percent) have caused the alcohol and ultra-processed food and drink industries to rapidly penetrate emerging global markets. This is just as the tobacco industry has done in the past, the journal added.

"The substantial growth of ultra-processed products has paralleled and contributed to the increase in obesity, diabetes, and other diet-related chronic diseases, especially in low-income and middle-income countries," The Lancet said.

Kaisa Snellman, assistant professor of organizational behavior at INSEAD, France, says that although obesity in Asia is growing it is still not as bad as in many developed countries.

Fast and processed foods are just part of the problem, she says.

"There are many issues at play here and food is just a part of the problem," Snellman says.

"We are seeing trends in the region especially in China where obesity and associated diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease are rising rapidly."

People's dietary patterns are changing as more and more bad foods are consumed, she says. Fast and processed foods are not just to blame, she adds, as many Asian food courts now use lots of fats, sugars, salt and oils in their cooking.

"We are also finding people are becoming more sedentary, which is also impacting on obesity levels."

Snellman believes the point is, with obesity, you are fighting it on many fronts: What kids are eating; how advertising is geared towards kids eating all the wrong foods; snacking; families changing eating patterns where processed foods replace fresh foods; and lack of exercise.

"It is hard to find a starting point," she says.

The University of Melbourne's Moodie says that the same patterns are starting to emerge in Asia as in Australia, the US and parts of Europe over the last 30 years.

"In parts of Asia obesity is rising. We know that. Eating habits are changing. Airports and railway stations are full of vending machines with fizzy, sugar-saturated drinks," Moodie explains.

There has been a major increase of late in marketing and promotion of fast and processed foods around the region, he adds.

"As people move into the middle class their eating habits are also changing.

" Time pressures and work patterns often mean that the idea of preparing a meal at home with fresh ingredients gets pushed to one side in preference to take away or something bought from the supermarket in a box or packet."

Unless this is brought into check now, Asia will soon find itself facing a major health crisis while the junk food and drinks companies see their profits rise, Moodie says.