ArticleEconomics and human biology2019
The price of ultra-processed foods and beverages and adult body weight: Evidence from U.S. veterans.
Article in Economics and human biology, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- An Evidence Map of the Women Veterans' Health Literature, 2016 to 2023: A Systematic Review.JAMA network open · 2025Pooled it
- Seventy-Five Percent of Total Energy Intake Comes From Ultra-Processed Foods Among a Sample of Veterans With Overweight and Obesity: An Exploratory Analysis of Three-Day Food Records.Federal practitioner : for the health care professionals of the VA, DoD, and PHS · 2026Article
- Beyond Plants: The Ultra-Processing of Global Diets Is Harming the Health of People, Places, and Planet.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- Consumers' Implicit and Explicit Recall, Understanding and Perceptions of Products with Nutrition-Related Messages: An Online Survey.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The consumption of ultra-processed foods in the U.S. and globally has increased and is associated with lower diet quality, higher energy intake, higher body weight, and poorer health outcomes. This study drew on individual-level data on measured height and weight from U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs medical records for adults aged 20 to 64 from 2009 through 2014 linked to food and beverage price data from the Council for Community and Economic Research to examine the association between the price of ultra-processed foods and beverages and adult body mass index (BMI). We estimated geographic fixed effects models to control for unobserved heterogeneity of prices. We estimated separate models for men and women and we assessed differences in price sensitivity across subpopulations by socioeconomic status (SES). The results showed that a one-dollar increase in the price of ultra-processed foods and beverages was associated with 0.08 lower BMI units for men (p ≤ 0.05) (price elasticity of BMI of -0.01) and 0.14 lower BMI units for women (p ≤ 0.10) (price elasticity of BMI of -0.02). Higher prices of ultra-processed foods and beverages were associated with lower BMI among low-SES men (price elasticity of BMI of -0.02) and low-SES women (price elasticity of BMI of -0.07) but no statistically significant associations were found for middle- or high-SES men or women. Robustness checks based on the estimation of an individual-level fixed effects model found a consistent but smaller association between the price of ultra-processed foods and beverages and BMI among women (price elasticity of BMI of -0.01) with a relatively larger association for low-SES women (price elasticity of BMI of -0.04) but revealed no association for men highlighting the importance of accounting for individual-level unobserved heterogeneity.
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Registered trials
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