A new report from Harvard, the University of Michigan, and Duke University draws a stark parallel: ultra-processed foods are engineered with the same precision as cigarettes to encourage consumption, and they might need similar regulation.
The comparison isn't metaphorical. Researchers found that manufacturers optimize these products the way tobacco companies did—calibrating ingredients to hit reward pathways in the brain, tweaking "doses" for maximum impact. A can of fizzy drink, a packet of mass-produced biscuits, a ready meal—these are engineered products, not accidents of nature.
The marketing tactics mirror each other too. Just as cigarette companies once advertised filters as "protective innovations" in the 1950s, food manufacturers now slap "low fat" or "sugar free" labels on products loaded with salt, additives, and engineered texture. The claim of benefit without the substance.
We're a new kind of news feed.
Regular news is designed to drain you. We're a non-profit built to restore you. Every story we publish is scored for impact, progress, and hope.
Start Your News DetoxUltra-processed foods—which include formula milk, fast food, sweets, mass-produced bread, breakfast cereals, and desserts—are linked to obesity, cancer, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. The health toll is real. But what makes this report significant is the regulatory argument it makes: if we learned anything from tobacco, it's that individual willpower isn't enough when products are designed to override it.
Prof Ashley Gearhardt, a clinical psychologist specializing in addiction, notes that her patients describe the same experience with food that smokers describe with cigarettes—a feeling of being unable to quit despite wanting to. That's not weakness. It's design.
The authors argue for regulation that mirrors tobacco control: litigation against manufacturers, restrictions on marketing, and structural changes to how these foods are produced and distributed. Not bans, but guardrails.
Some experts push back on the comparison, questioning whether ultra-processed foods are intrinsically addictive or whether the health damage comes mainly from displacing whole foods. They suggest focusing instead on dietary quality standards, reformulation requirements, and diversifying the food system itself. Both arguments point in the same direction—the current system isn't working, and change has to come from somewhere.
What's shifting is the conversation itself. A decade ago, calling for tobacco-style regulation of food would have sounded extreme. Now it's coming from major research institutions. That's not a solution yet, but it's the necessary first step: naming the problem clearly enough that ignoring it becomes harder.
