An article in the Milbank Quarterly, a US-based peer-reviewed journal of population health and health policy, said these food products are “engineered less like food and more like cigarettes – optimized for craving, rapid intake, and repeated use.”
Governments and public health watchdogs must look no further at why soda, sweets, fast food and processed snacks are flooding the market and being consumed excessively – they are made and modelled after the addictive features of cigarettes, a US-based article warned.
An article in the Milbank Quarterly, a US-based peer-reviewed journal of population health and health policy, said these food products are “engineered less like food and more like cigarettes – optimized for craving, rapid intake, and repeated use.”
A statement from the Milbank Memorial Fund that works with health policy leaders and decision makers and publishes evidence-based journals such as the Milbank Quarterly, said, “As the US government and many states focus on addressing the role of UPFs in driving the country’s high chronic disease rates, the Milbank Quarterly article looks at how the design, marketing, and distribution of UPFs mirror those of industrial tobacco products.
In 2025, cardiovascular disorders, cancer, diabetes and chronic respiratory diseases remain the leading causes of over 76 percent of death and disability in the US, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and the Pan American Health Organization, noting that this amounted to $4.9 trillion or 90 percent of the country’s annual healthcare costs. Sugary and processed products and cigarettes are the main culprit.
“The authors recommend that policymakers view UPFs not only as food but also as addictive, industrially engineered substances like tobacco – and that they consider successful tobacco control efforts as a model for regulating them,” said the statement.
The article said the review synthesized findings from addiction science, nutrition and public health history to identify structural and sensory features that increase the addictive potential of both cigarettes and UPFs.
The authors focused on five key areas: dose optimization, delivery speed, hedonic engineering, environmental ubiquity, and deceptive reformulation.
‘Maximizing pleasure’
In the journal article, some methods showed similar ways with how that cigarettes are engineered to deliver nicotine quickly and trigger cravings, such as the following:
• Deliver sugar and/or fats at doses high enough to maximize pleasure while minimizing aversive responses
• Accelerate the digestion of these sugars and fats by stripping fiber, protein, and water – and adding enzymes that help break them down quickly
• Create a rapid rise in blood sugar, followed by a swift drop
• Include extra ingredients for taste, smell, and texture to make the food more appealing, reduce feelings of fullness, and help it last longer on the shelf.
It added that the packaging and wide availability of cigarettes, e-cigarettes and
UPFs make it easy to create a habit – one that that is often marketed as healthy with labels
like “low-tar” or “smoke-free,” or “high protein” or “low fat.”
It also quoted author Ashley Gearhardt, PhD, clinical science area chair and professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, as saying that manufacturers of “some ultra-processed foods have crossed a line” by copying industrial tobacco products.
“That level of harm demands regulatory action aimed at industry design and marketing, not individual willpower,” she added.
Same Philippine scenario
In the Philippines, Ralph Degollacion, managing partner of HealthJustice, a public health think tank of doctors, lawyers and economists that aims to empower Filipinos to make healthy choices, said the country has seen and experienced this setup.
“We’ve seen this before with tobacco. For decades, cigarettes were engineered to keep people addicted, aggressively marketed especially to the young, and defended as a matter of personal choice, even as our health system and hospitals paid the price,” explained Degollacion.
But he said that if governments take action, it can be turned around.
“Through this experience, we learned that government action works,” he said, recalling that when the Sin Tax Law (Philippine Sin Tax Law or RA 10351) was enacted, “graphic health warnings, advertising bans, smoke-free policies, and safeguards against tobacco industry interference, smoking rates declined and health financing under Universal Health Care improved.”
He lamented however, that “recent developments in vaping show how gains can be reversed, that’s why government has to be consistent.”
The same public health approach applies to UPFs and sugary products, he said.
“Government must act through stronger limits on marketing to children, clear front-of-pack nutrition labels, taxing beverages that are high in sugar, and policies that make healthier food more accessible and affordable.”
The Philippine Statistics Authority’s 2025 data said over 70 percent of deaths, illnesses and disability in the country were due to heart diseases, cancers, diabetes and stroke due to high consumption of processed foods, smoking and lack of physical activity.