[ranger_danger]

Probably because "ultra-processed" is a bogus definition that doesn't prove what exactly is unsafe or why, which the authors of the study even acknowledge directly in the article:

> Critics argue UPF is an ill-defined category and existing health policies, such as those aimed at reducing sugar and salt consumption, are sufficient to deal with the threat.

> Monteiro and his co-authors acknowledged valid scientific critiques of Nova and UPF – such as lack of long-term clinical and community trials, an emerging understanding of mechanisms, and the existence of subgroups with different nutritional values.

It's not "processing" in itself that is causing problems, there is something specific (possibly a set of common ingredients used in many such foods) that we just haven't identified yet as what the actual harm is, so people lump all processed food into the harmful category and tell people to just stay away from all of it, which is not a realistic solution given current food production practices.

[zug_zug]

Sounds like those people are having an irrational emotional response to a term rather than addressing the presented research in good faith.

Also being a broad or nebulous category doesn’t make it not science… much of what science studies starts broad and nebulous or even theoretical.

[UncleMeat]

Right but we aren't at the "hey we found this category has some interesting correlations with health outcomes, let's look into this" stage. The authors are advocating for specific policy interventions using the definition of UPF.