Ultra-processed foods, like tobacco, are engineered to heighten reward, drive compulsive consumption, and potentially create addiction, and should therefore be regulated as such, a new study suggests.
Researchers from Harvard, Duke, and Michigan universities compared how tobacco and ultra-processed foods (UPFs) resemble each other in design, marketing, and distribution in a paper published in the journal Milbank Quarterly.
They argue that these products should be evaluated not only through a nutritional lens but as addictive, industrially engineered substances.
“Some ultra-processed foods have crossed a line,” Ashley Gearhardt, one of the authors of the study and a psychology professor at the University of Michigan, said.
She added that products including fizzy drinks, sweets, and fast food are engineered less like food and more like cigarettes, optimised for craving, rapid intake, and repeated use.
“That level of harm demands regulatory action aimed at industry design and marketing, not individual willpower,” Gearhardt added.
Diets rich in UPFs are increasing worldwide and are associated with a higher risk of several diet‑related diseases and other negative health outcomes, the World Health Organization (WHO) warns.
UPFs are associated with risks for heart disease, cancers, metabolic disease, diabetes, and obesity.
Common examples include supermarket-ready meals, frozen pizzas, sweetened breakfast cereals, biscuits, sausages, ice cream, chicken nuggets, fish fingers, and instant noodles.
How food is engineered like cigarettes
Based on their analysis, the researchers said that many UPFs share more characteristics with cigarettes than with minimally processed fruits or vegetables and therefore warrant regulation that reflects the public-health risks they pose.
The history of tobacco regulation, they say, offers a compelling parallel for understanding UPFs.
“These products are not simply modified foods – they are carefully engineered to maximise hedonic impact, consumption, and profitability through industrial processing”, the researchers wrote.
Tobacco and UPFs, they note, share a common origin story: both begin as natural, plant-based substances that demonstrate little addictive potential in their unprocessed forms, but are then industrially re-engineered to increase accessibility and maximise profit.
As with tobacco, the foods driving modern epidemics of obesity, diabetes, and metabolic disease are not inherently harmful in their natural form, the researchers argue.
Recognising the industry’s role, they say, should shift the conversation from individual blame to corporate accountability.
What is the solution?
Ultra-processed diets are an increasing concern among public health experts.
In the United States, more than half of the average person’s daily calories now come from UPFs, while in the United Kingdom, they account for almost two-thirds of adolescents’ calorie intake.
The study calls for policies similar to the ones targeting tobacco and other harmful substances, including taxes on nutrient-poor ultra-processed foods, restrictions on advertising (particularly to children), and reducing availability in hospitals and schools.
Similar to tobacco, the authors call for clear product labelling, warning that claims such as “low fat” or “high protein” often disguise highly processed products, making them healthier than they are.
