Who Is Creating the Next Generation of Healthy Consumers?

Have you ever had one of those moments of realisation that leaves you wondering, how is this not being talked about?

The work I do gives me the privilege of sitting at very different tables. Some days I'm speaking with governments about preventative health policy. Other days it's retailers, healthcare providers, food producers or agricultural organisations. And ultimately, every conversation leads back to families, because that is where health is lived and experienced.

Around the world, there is growing momentum behind preventative health. Governments are investing in healthier populations. Food manufacturers are reformulating products. Retailers are expanding healthier ranges. Agricultural policies are supporting the production of fresh fruit, vegetables and dairy. Farmers continue to work tirelessly to produce the food that sustains us.

All of this attention means the supply side of healthier living receives enormous investment, innovation and strategic focus.  What surprises me, and increasingly shocks me, is how little attention is given to the demand side of the equation.

What is the value of producing an abundance of healthy food if there’s dwindling demand, with fewer and fewer people genuinely wanting to eat it?

The imbalance is quite remarkable.  Markets don’t survive on supply alone. They depend on demand. Yet when we think about creating healthier populations, we rarely ask one of the most fundamental economic questions:

How are we creating the next generation of healthy consumers?

Children are not born with an intrinsic preference for ultra-processed foods (although their ingredients are designed to hit dopamine centres and be addictive), nor are they born loving broccoli. Their food preferences are shaped over time by repeated experiences, emotional associations, family routines, culture, marketing and the environments they grow up in.

If we want healthier populations in twenty or thirty years' time, surely we need to invest not only in growing healthy food, but in growing the desire for it.

Demand is not accidental.  Every major ultra-processed food company understands this. They invest billions in creating familiarity, emotional connection, brand loyalty and habitual consumption from an early age. Despite overwhelming evidence linking frequent consumption of many ultra-processed foods with poorer health outcomes, demand continues to grow because demand has been deliberately cultivated.

By contrast, we often assume that healthy food will simply sell itself.  If we improve availability, increase affordability and produce enough fruit and vegetables, demand will naturally follow.

But behavioural science suggests otherwise.  Preferences are learned, habits are formed, and demand is most certainly shaped.

Accessibility and affordability are obviously essential, particularly from an equity perspective. But they are only part of the equation. If children are unfamiliar with fruit and vegetables, if families lack the confidence or opportunity to prepare them, if taste preferences have been conditioned by highly processed foods engineered for maximum palatability, then increasing supply isn’t going to touch eating habits.

This is where I believe one of the greatest missed opportunities in preventative health lies.  For decades, we have invested heavily in producing healthier food while investing comparatively little in creating the lifelong demand that makes those investments economically, agriculturally and socially sustainable.

Perhaps the greatest irony is that while governments invest billions supporting the production of healthier food, we continue to operate food environments that are remarkably effective at generating demand for the very products contributing to the burden of preventable disease.

This isn't simply a nutrition issue, it’s a system-wide issue, from agriculture to economics, from public health to human capability, and today’s children are right at the heart of this issue.  They are the future customers of the fruit, vegetables and dairy produced by our farmers. They are the future workforce upon which our economies depend. They are the future parents who will shape another generation's relationship with food.

If we fail to cultivate healthy demand during childhood, we undermine the very systems we are trying to strengthen.  Perhaps the next frontier in preventative health is not simply producing healthier food and increasing the availability of healthier options or reformulated favourites, it is creating healthier demand.

I believe demand-led prevention is a missing piece of system-level thinking. Alongside investment in agriculture, food innovation and healthier supply chains, we need equal ambition in helping children and families genuinely enjoy, choose and value healthy food.

Without sustained demand, even the strongest supply-side strategies will struggle to deliver their full economic, agricultural and public health potential. Creating healthier demand is not separate from preventative health, it is fundamental to it.

About the author

Dr Laura Holland is an advisor in preventative health and human capability, with a background in economics, nutrition and integrative medicine. Through BeU, she works privately with individuals, advises organisations, and writes about the future of health, behaviour and human flourishing.