On 30 September 2026, I presented at the Micronutrient Forum’s 7th Global Conference in Accra, Ghana. Held from 28 September to 1 October under the theme Nutrition at the Frontiers of a Changing Environment, the conference brought together researchers, policymakers, and practitioners working across nutrition and food systems.

I shared work developed with Belen Beltramo, Phyllis Addo, and Suleiman Oshioke Yakubu, published in The Lancet Regional Health – Africa as Ultra-processed food consumption in sub-Saharan Africa: a narrative review through a gender lens. Our review examines how the growing consumption of ultra-processed foods relates to the gendered organisation of domestic foodwork.

Across the region, women often combine paid employment with primary responsibility for acquiring food, cooking, and related household tasks. The resulting time pressures can make ultra-processed foods a practical coping strategy. We argue that nutrition policies encouraging home cooking or changes in individual behaviour risk increasing women’s unpaid workload if they overlook these everyday constraints.

My presentation highlighted the need for approaches that improve diets while recognising, reducing, and redistributing the labour involved in feeding households. Bringing a gender lens to nutrition policy means paying attention to who does this work, the time and resources available to them, and the food environments in which they make decisions.