What we eat and how we think about food and nutrition are undergoing a momentous change, driven by the rise of ultra-processed food. There is a growing body of evidence linking the consumption of ultra-processed food to poor health outcomes. However, the health depleting effects of ultra-processed food go beyond changes in discrete indicators of nutrition and health. Processes of depletion entail social, economic, and political relations. This paper aims to emphasise the importance of a social science research agenda on ultra-processed food by establishing the conceptual connections between ultra-processed food and depletion using a social reproduction approach. To do this, it draws on the notion of depletion through social reproduction elaborated by Shirin Rai, Catherine Hoskyns and Dania Thomas, which provided inspiration to unpack the totality of social reproduction and consider specific resources needed for social reproduction. Such an approach reveals that ultra-processed food is both an input for social reproduction, through consumption, and a form of social reproduction work, when food work and the associated (health) care work are considered. On this basis, the paper identifies four conceptual dimensions to explore whether and to what extent the expansion of ultra-processed food can cause depletion and the key methodological principles to use this conceptual approach in empirical research.

中文翻译：

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超加工食品、消耗和社会再生产：概念干预

在超加工食品兴起的推动下，我们吃的东西以及我们对食物和营养的看法正在发生重大变化。越来越多的证据表明，食用超加工食品与不良健康结果有关。然而，超加工食品对健康的损害不仅仅限于营养和健康指标的变化。耗竭过程涉及社会、经济和政治关系。本文旨在通过使用社会再生产方法建立超加工食品与消耗之间的概念联系，强调超加工食品社会科学研究议程的重要性。为此，它借鉴了 Shirin Rai、Catherine Hoskyns 和 Dania Thomas 阐述的社会再生产耗尽的概念，该概念为揭示社会再生产的整体性并考虑社会再生产所需的特定资源提供了灵感。这种方法表明，当考虑食品工作和相关的（卫生）保健工作时，超加工食品既是通过消费进行社会再生产的投入，也是社会再生产工作的一种形式。在此基础上，本文确定了四个概念维度，以探讨超加工食品的扩张是否以及在多大程度上会导致资源枯竭，以及在实证研究中使用这一概念方法的关键方法原则。