We are entering Big Food’s Big Tobacco moment. The fight to hold tobacco companies responsible for the deadly health effects and associated health-care costs of their products took decades, culminating in the 1998 $206 billion settlement with 46 states and reforms like a ban on marketing cigarettes to young people. In the ’60s, when free sampler packs of cigarettes were given out to high schoolers, 42% of American adults smoked. Today that number is 12%.
Is that where Big Food is headed with ultra-processed foods, artificial dyes, and sugary beverages? We’re actually further along in that process than many might think. Forces for change are converging across the political, legal, and cultural landscape—and we have the example of the fight against Big Tobacco to draw on.
