It’s also very difficult statistically to remove the co-morbidity factors:

populations that eat more “processed” foods !especially in the US! are poor, in toxic environs, stressed, over-policed, incarcerated, discriminated, unstable housing healthcare employment, using “coping” mechanisms, in a food desert, multigenerational defecit of various “health skills”, no “free” time for cooking and exercise, etc etc etc

If they had healthcare, housing and union jobs … stats wouldn’t be near so bad for them