Ultra-Processed Foods: The New Cigarettes?

A groundbreaking new report from researchers at Harvard, the University of Michigan, and Duke University is sounding a major alarm, stating that ultra-processed foods (UPFs) like packaged snacks, sodas, and biscuits share more dangerous characteristics with cigarettes than with nutritious whole foods.

The study argues that food manufacturers deliberately engineer these products—using specific formulations of fats, salts, and artificial flavors—to optimize their effect on the brain’s reward pathways, driving compulsive consumption and addiction in a manner directly comparable to the tobacco industry’s tactics.

The report highlights that marketing claims such as “low-fat” or “sugar-free” act as a form of “health-washing,” misleading consumers much like cigarette filters were falsely marketed as safer in the 1950s.

With patients reporting the same addictive cravings for UPFs as they once did for cigarettes, the authors assert that these foods warrant similarly strict regulation, calling for a critical public health shift from placing blame on individuals to holding the food industry accountable through litigation, marketing restrictions, and structural interventions to mitigate widespread harm.