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The first time the nutrition researcher Kevin Hall heard anyone talk about ultra-processed food, he thought it was “a nonsense definition”.
营养学研究员凯文·霍尔第一次听到有人谈论超加工食品时，他认为这是“一个毫无意义的定义”。
It was 2016 and Hall – who studies how people put on weight at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases at Bethesda, Maryland – was at a conference chatting with a representative from PepsiCo who scornfully mentioned the new Brazilian set of food guidelines and specifically the directive to avoid ultra-processed foods.
那是2016年，霍尔在马里兰州贝塞斯达的国家糖尿病、消化系统病和肾脏病研究所研究人们是如何增加体重的。霍尔在一次会议上与百事公司的一位代表聊天。这位代表提到了巴西的新食品指南，特别是避免超加工食品的指令，并对此不屑一顾。
Hall agreed that this was a silly rule because, as far as he was concerned, obesity had nothing to do with food processing.
霍尔也认为这是一个愚蠢的指导方针，因为在他看来，肥胖与食品加工没有任何关系。
Anyone can see that some foods are processed to a higher degree than others – an Oreo is not the same as an orange – but Hall knew of no scientific proof that said the degree of processed food in a person’s diet could cause them to gain weight.
任何人都知道，有些食物的加工程度就是要比其他食物高——奥利奥和橙子的加工程度不一样——但霍尔知道没有科学证据表明，个人饮食中的食物加工程度会导致体重增加。
Hall is a physicist by training and he is a self-confessed “reductionist”.
霍尔是一名训练有素的物理学家，他承认自己是一名“简化论者”。
He likes to take things apart and see how they work.
他喜欢把东西拆开看看它们的运作过程。
He is therefore attracted to the idea that food is nothing more than the sum of its nutrient parts: fats plus carbs plus protein and fibre, and so on.
因此，他被这样一种观点所吸引，即食物只不过是其营养成分的总和: 脂肪加碳水化合物加蛋白质和纤维，等等。
The whole notion of ultra-processed foods annoyed him because it seemed too fuzzy.
超加工食品的整个概念惹恼了他，因为这个概念似乎太模糊了。
When Hall started to read through the scientific literature on ultra-processed foods, he noticed that all of the damning evidence against them took the form of correlation rather than absolute proof.
当霍尔开始通读有关超加工食品的科学文献时，他注意到所有对它们不利的证据都是关联性的，而不是绝对的证据。
Like most studies on the harmful effects of particular foods, these studies fell under the umbrella of epidemiology: the study of patterns of health across populations.
像大多数关于特定食物有害影响的研究一样，这些研究属于流行病学的范畴: 对各个人群健康模式的研究。
Hall – and he is not alone here – finds such studies less than convincing.
霍尔——他并不是唯一一个这样想的人——发现这样的研究缺乏说服力。
Correlation is not causation, as the saying goes.
俗话说，相关关系不是因果关系。
Just because people who eat a lot of UPFs are more likely to be obese or suffer from cancer does not mean that obesity and cancer are caused by UPFs, per se.
仅仅因为摄入大量超加工食品的人更容易肥胖、患癌症，这并不意味着肥胖和癌症本身就是由超加工食品引起的。
“Typically, it’s people in lower economic brackets who eat a lot of these foods,” Hall said.
霍尔说: “通常情况下，经济水平较低的人会吃很多这些食物。”
He thought UPFs were being wrongly blamed for the poor health outcomes of living in poverty.
他认为，人们误将生活贫困导致的健康状况不佳归咎于超加工食品。
At the end of 2018, Hall and his colleagues became the first scientists to test – in randomised controlled conditions – whether diets high in ultra-processed foods could actually cause overeating and weight gain.
2018年底，霍尔和他的同事成为首批在随机对照条件下测试含有大量超加工食品的饮食是否真的会导致暴饮暴食和体重增加的科学家。
