The rise in ultra-processed foods could mean Irish children are missing out on important nutrients before they're even born.
A recent study found "consistent evidence" that higher exposure to ultra-processed foods is associated with an increased risk of 32 damaging health outcomes.
These include cancer, major heart and lung conditions, mental health disorders and early death.
The findings, published by The BMJ, show that diets high in ultra-processed food may be harmful to many body systems.
Ultra-processed foods include packaged baked goods and snacks, fizzy drinks, sugary cereals and ready-to-eat or heat products.
These foods undergo multiple industrial processes and often contain colours, emulsifiers, flavours and other additives.
Food and Behaviour Research UK Director Dr Alex Richardson told Newstalk Breakfast people's tastes and preferences can be shaped even before they're born.
"The kind of diet that mum is eating, some of that will indeed filter through to the unborn child," she said
"A sweet tooth can actually start being fed before you're born – it is the critical period in brain development."
'Blood sugar rollercoaster'
Dr Richardson said a high-sugar breakfast is a bad way to start the day.
"It is setting them up beautifully for a blood sugar rollercoaster," she said.
"The faster things release their sugar into the bloodstream the faster your blood sugar rises, the faster it falls.
"So not very much later you are going to find the body pumps out insulin - that's the hormone that gets sugar out of your bloodstream and tries to get it into your cells.
"A plummeting blood sugar level is going to stoke up automatically things like adrenaline, stress hormones and so on".
Dr Richardson said if people don't eat healthy option with their breakfast "your mood, your attention, your concentration are on a rollercoaster most of the day."
"We've had the word 'hangry' invented".
Warning labels
Dr Richardson said she believes tobacco-style warnings on ultra-processed foods would be a welcome change.
"It's not a step too far to be honest," she said.
"We all know that even trying to define the word 'addiction' is difficult.
"These foods - the ultra-processed foods - they really are essentially chemical concoctions because they've got very little actual real food as such in there, they're packed with additives.
"They're designed to be hyper-palatable, is the word, but as the old American advert said, 'Bet you can't eat just one'".
Sugar and drugs
Dr Richardson said she equates sugar to other potentially addictive substances.
"Just like alcohol, of course, some of us can drink alcohol without becoming an alcoholic - and the same goes for these ultra-processed foods", she said.
"It was known decades ago that sugar itself hits the very same reward pathways in the brain that drugs of abuse do.
"You do get the withdrawal... but it's more complicated than just one thing, it isn't just the sugar".
Dr Richardson added that "proportion" is a key element when it comes to eating ultra-processed foods.
