Global food system: A new scientific review warns that today’s global food system could, on its own, drive the planet beyond key climate limits, even if the world stopped burning fossil fuels immediately.
The study, published in Frontiers in Science, argues that modern food systems are fueling two crises at the same time: rising obesity and accelerating global heating. The researchers say profit-driven food environments increasingly push people toward energy-dense, low-fibre diets dominated by ultra-processed foods, while emissions-intensive production, especially livestock-heavy systems, adds major pressure on land, water and the climate.
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The authors said relying mainly on weight-loss drugs or surgery may help individuals, but does not fix the broader conditions shaping entire populations and ecosystems. They also flagged concerns around long-term affordability, safety and sustained access, particularly as obesity rates rise among younger and lower-income groups.
“While obesity is a complex disease driven by many interacting factors, the primary driver is the consumption-driven transformation of the food system over the last 40 years,” said lead researcher Jeff Holly of the University of Bristol. “Unlike weight-loss drugs or surgery, addressing this driver will help humans and planet alike.”
The review recommends reshaping food environments through measures such as subsidies for healthier foods, taxes and warning labels for particularly unhealthy products, and tighter limits on aggressive marketing of high-calorie, low-fibre foods, especially to children and in low-income communities.
By 2035, the researchers noted, about half the world’s population is projected to be overweight or obese, increasing the risk of chronic illnesses such as heart disease and cancer. They also pointed to growing health impacts from climate change, citing estimates that heat-related deaths average about 546,000 a year for 2012–2021.
Food production, the authors said, accounts for roughly a quarter to a third of global greenhouse-gas emissions and is a leading driver of deforestation and biodiversity loss. The team argued that shifting diets toward minimally processed, fibre-rich plant foods, with fewer animal products, would reduce emissions and help curb weight gain.
First author Paul Behrens of the University of Oxford said transforming what people eat and how food is produced is essential. The researchers added that preventing weight gain by improving food environments would be cheaper, and less harmful, than paying for the consequences of obesity and climate damage later.