Disentagling nutrition facts from fiction: Towards healthy and sustainable consumption in industrialized societies

Over the last centuries, in the context of industrialization, globalization and urbanization, profound dietary changes have occurred. Ubiquitous access to cheap, readily available and highly palatable unhealthy products, together with aggressive marketing that forcefully impacts social norms, have led to overconsumption of energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods. This has not only been associated with a higher prevalence of obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases, but also with detrimental effects on the world’s natural resources. Broader and braver public health measures favoring the availability and affordability of healthy, minimally processed foods should be implemented in conjunction with educational strategies to re-encourage a healthy and sustainable food consumption.