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Eating More Ultra-Processed Food Is Bad for Your Bones

Eating More Ultra-Processed Food Is Bad for Your Bones

People who ate more ultra-processed food had lower bone mineral density and a higher risk of hip fracture.
Written by |Reviewed by |Updated on June 15, 2026
A hand holding a prepared meal in a plastic bowl reaching into a microwave oven.

Although cheap and plentiful, ultra-processed foods — think hot dogs, snack cakes, and soda — are linked to a number of health concerns, including cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. Researchers now know that these foods also can harm your bones.

A study from Tulane University found that people who ate more ultra-processed foods were more likely to break a hip than people who ate less of these foods.

On average, people ate about eight servings of ultra-processed foods per day, according to the study results, which included more than 160,000 people from the UK Biobank database. That was considered the baseline. For every 3.7 additional servings of ultra-processed food a person ate per day (above and beyond the eight), the risk of breaking a hip went up by 10.5%. Although a serving size is different among food types, the researchers said that 3.7 servings is about equal to a meal consisting of a frozen dinner entrée, a cookie, and a soda.

Many experts define ultra-processed foods as foods that have one or more ingredients that wouldn’t be in a home kitchen, like chemical preservatives, high-fructose corn syrup, and artificial colors and flavors. Ultra-processed foods also are almost always high in calories and low in nutrients. A 2023 study estimated that about 75% of the U.S. food supply is ultra-processed food.

The results of the Tulane study showed that eating large amounts of ultra-processed food was linked to lower bone mineral density in the upper femur and the lumbar spine region. The link between ultra-processed foods and lower bone density was most apparent in people younger than 65 and in people with a BMI of less than 18.5 (considered underweight).

According to study author Lu Qi, MD, PhD, HCA Regents Distinguished Chair and professor of public health and tropical medicine at Tulane University, the results aren’t surprising. “Ultra-processed foods have been consistently associated with various nutrition-related disorders, and bone health depends on proper nutrition.”