Junk food addiction: BBC News Review

Chocolate bars and ice cream can be as addictive as drugs. Now

some scientists think they should come with a warning.

This is News Review from BBC

Learning English. I'm Neil

And I'm Beth.

Make sure you watch to the end to learn vocabulary to talk about this story.

Don't forget to subscribe to our channel, like this video

and try the quiz on our website.

Now, the story. The junk food.

you love might soon have 'addictive' written on it.

A major review has found that adding warning labels

to ultra-processed food could stop people buying it.

Researchers say these foods can have the same addiction symptoms as drugs.

They estimate 1 in 7 adults and 1 in 8 children are already

addicted to ultra-processed foods. You've been looking at the headlines,

Beth. What's the vocabulary?

We have: labelled, tackle and slapping.

This is News Review from BBC

Learning English.  

Let's have a look at our first headline.

This is from Sky News.

Some ultra-processed foods should be labelled 'addictive', scientists

say. So, this headline is saying that

some scientists think certain types of food,

ultra-processed foods, should be labelled 'addictive'.

Addictive, meaning something

you cannot stop doing. But we're looking at 'labelled'

and it contains the word 'label'. 'A label' – something you find,

for example, on your clothes or on a packet, which has some information.

It does, yeah. A label gives you information about the object

that it's attached to, like your shirt.

But here the headline is saying that ultra-processed food

should literally come with a label that says 'addictive' on it.

Right, so is that it?

It's very literal.

It's very clear, but I bet there's a metaphorical use as well.

There is. So a person, an object, an activity can be labelled

and this means described in a certain way,

often unfairly. For example,

maybe you tell one lie

and now you're labelled a liar.

Were you labelled anything at school, Neil? Maybe a troublemaker?

No. I wasn't labelled a troublemaker, but maybe I was labelled a clown

because I used to like to make funny jokes in the class.

[laughs] Yeah.

OK, let's look at that again.

Let's have our next headline.

This is from The Times. Label

ultra-processed foods 'addictive' to tackle obesity, say scientists.

So, there's that word 'label' again that we've just been learning about.

Scientists say we should label

ultra-processed foods as 'addictive'

so that we can help to tackle obesity and 'tackle' is the word

we are looking at. 'Tackle' is a word familiar to every football fan.

It's when you try to take the ball from the opposition.

Is there any connection?

Kind of. So, in football,

the other team are the opposition and you want to beat them. Now, in the story,

tackle is used metaphorically.

Obesity is what we want to beat or deal with and

that's why the headline says we want to tackle obesity. We need to deal with

it. OK. So how else can we use 'tackle' in this metaphorical way?

Well, police might tackle crime in a city.

Lots of people are doing what they can to tackle climate change.

That's right.

I've started riding my bike to work to help tackle climate change.

Let's look at that again.

Let's have our next headline.

This is from the Daily Mail. Slapping junk food

with 'addictive' warning labels could help end

obesity, major review finds.

So, addictive warning labels could be added to junk food. The word

we're looking at is 'slapping'. Beth,

what is 'slap'? It's this.

Don't worry, that wasn't real,

and slap in the headline is also not literal.

It's metaphorical. So, 'slap' here means to put a label on to the junk food

quickly and urgently.

Yes, that's right.

So, it's emphasising that the new labels should be added soon.

It's an urgent situation and the use of slap,

there's a kind of aggression about it as well.

Now, Beth, can you give me 10

more examples please? 10?

We don't have time for 10 more! That's ridiculous.

Well Beth just slapped down my idea.

And there's another use of 'slap' as a phrasal verb with 'down'

and it means to criticise someone's suggestion.

Let's look at that again.

We've had: tackle – deal with,

labelled – described in a specific way and slapping – attaching urgently.

Now if you enjoyed this topic, we think you'll love this episode of News Review

about fast food being bad for your brain.

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