Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says nearly 600 cumulative years of litigation has cost countries billions and created a “regulatory chill”, after an investigation by the Guardian and partners uncovered 235 lawsuits over anti-obesity policies.
The head of the World Health Organization has accused the world’s largest ultra-processed food companies of standing in the way of the global fight against obesity by dragging governments through the courts. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said litigation over measures such as warning labels and junk-food taxes had cost countries billions of dollars and delayed vital protections for years. His intervention follows an investigation by the Guardian, the non-profit newsroom Lighthouse Reports, academics and media partners across four continents, which identified 235 lawsuits brought over food policies in Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, the US and the UK between 2010 and 2025.
Responding to the findings, the WHO director general said they came “as no surprise” but were “met with grim recognition”. “When harm and profit are tied to the same product, a familiar pattern of industry interference emerges: sowing doubt and obstructing regulation,” he said.
“The report documents how litigation has been used to oppose or weaken public health measures on obesity and unhealthy diets, amounting to nearly 600 cumulative years of costly legal battles, an average of 2.5 years per case, most of them unsuccessful,” Tedros added. “These delays cost countries billions in healthcare and legal expenses and create a regulatory chill that deters governments from adopting vital protections.”
Almost one billion people — one in seven worldwide, according to Tedros’s figures for 2024 — are living with obesity, and poor diets are among the leading drivers of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and cancer. Ultra-processed products now account for around half the average diet in several countries, among them the UK, the US and Australia, and governments have increasingly responded with front-of-pack warning labels, restrictions on the marketing and advertising of unhealthy products, and taxes on junk food.
Publicly, the biggest manufacturers insist they support such policies, want to help consumers make informed choices and are committed to being part of the solution. Yet the investigation — described as the first multi-country analysis of its kind, and conducted with researchers from the Robert and Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Centre and the universities of Sydney, São Paulo and Caldas — found many of the same businesses pursuing court action to overturn, water down or postpone those very measures.
Mexico at the centre of the legal battle
Of the 235 cases identified, the vast majority — 193 — were filed in Mexico, alongside 18 in Colombia and 17 in Brazil, making Latin America the main arena for the industry’s legal resistance. Katherine Shats, a legal specialist in child nutrition at UNICEF, said the region’s leadership in introducing strong food-environment policies had made it a focal point for corporate challenges, turning it into a testing ground for both public health policy and industry pushback.
Dozens of the cases remain active, meaning governments are still defending labelling, taxation and marketing rules in court. Of those already resolved, the food corporations lost three-quarters — yet even the failed claims held up public health measures for years and tied officials into complex, expensive proceedings. According to the investigation, the sheer persistence of the litigation suggests aims beyond winning: slowing the rollout of new laws and discouraging other countries and regulators from adopting similar policies. Researchers also drew a parallel with the tobacco industry, saying the pattern of repeated legal action to delay or dilute regulation closely resembles strategies that tobacco companies once used to resist oversight.
Warning labels the prime target
Labelling rules attracted more lawsuits than any other policy, ahead of junk-food taxes and marketing restrictions. Melissa Mialon, an associate professor at the French research institute Inserm, said front-of-pack warnings were a priority target for industry litigation because they make it easier for governments to justify tougher measures later, such as taxes and advertising curbs.
Three-quarters of the claims were brought by ultra-processed food companies or the trade groups representing them, and court documents reviewed during the investigation show some corporations asked judges to keep their names out of public records. Where the claimant could be identified, 38% of the company lawsuits were traced to eight parent corporations: Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Mondelēz, Kellogg’s, Danone, Ferrero, Xignux and Heartland Food Products Group.
Call for companies to abandon the courtroom
Tedros acknowledged that some large manufacturers had reported progress in making their products healthier, but argued that genuine commitment meant dropping the legal challenges. “These efforts are welcome, but they are not sufficient on their own to meet the scale of this global health crisis,” he said. “To contribute meaningfully to the solution, companies should also end litigation and other tactics that strain limited government resources and hinder efforts to protect public health.”
Many of the contested measures have proved effective, he said, with a growing number of countries showing “real, measurable results” — though he warned that such policies remain concentrated in upper-middle- and high-income nations. “This reflects a broader inequity, not only in the growing burden of disease but also in governments’ capacity to respond, an inequity that litigation compounds by delaying action where the need is greatest,” he said.
The pressure has been felt in Britain too. The Guardian reported last year that the UK government shelved new guidance urging shops to promote minimally processed and nutritious food following a lobbying campaign by ultra-processed food companies.
Despite the scale of the industry’s resistance, Tedros urged governments not to be deterred by legal threats and to continue adopting evidence-based measures to improve diets. “Momentum for change is building, and WHO remains committed to supporting these efforts every step of the way,” he said.
