Engineering appetite: commercial framing, ultra-processed products, and the information environment in Nigeria and Uganda
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This article reconceptualizes the rapid growth of ultra-processed products (UPPs) and fast-food chains in Nigeria and Uganda as a transformation of informational power rather than solely a shift in dietary behavior. Utilizing the Information Environment Assessment (IEA) framework, the study examines how commercial actors structure meaning, visibility, and policy discourse across interconnected domains of People and Community; Information Sources; Actors; and Policy, Process, and Enablers. Guided by critical anthropology and the Commercial Determinants of Health (CDoH), the analysis positions media manipulation as a form of epistemic governance embedded in broader political-economic systems. A qualitative, multi-method research design was conducted across Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Kampala, and Entebbe. Data included 74 policy, academic, and corporate documents; 312 outdoor and point-of-sale advertisements; 96 hours of radio broadcasting (148 advertisements); 420 digital promotional artifacts across major social media platforms; and spatial mapping of 214 fast-food outlets. In total, 1,168 units were thematically coded to assess structural informational asymmetries. Findings indicate that media manipulation operates through coordinated multimodal strategies: aspirational urban identity framing, moderation rhetoric, billboard saturation, sports sponsorship, influencer marketing, health-halo packaging, corporate social responsibility campaigns, coalition-building, and policy-dystopia narratives. Rather than disseminating overt falsehoods, these strategies privilege selective truths, emotional association, and risk omission, embedding energy-dense, nutrient-poor consumption within cultural aspiration and economic discourse. Weak advertising regulation, fragmented digital governance, and trade-enabled market expansion further entrench these distortions. The study argues that escalating burdens of obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and diet-related cancers are inseparable from this structurally distorted information environment. Effective public health intervention therefore requires rebalancing informational infrastructures alongside reforming food systems.
Source: BMC Public Health
Institution: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
Language: English
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,290
OpenAlex ID: W7161078846