Revelations in the latest American Journal of Public Health unravel the strategies used by big tobacco companies – which have acquired food product lines – that replicate those used to sell cigarettes as they push sales of ultra-processed items towards children, reports The Guardian.
The work builds on a recent study published in Milbank Quarterly, which described how tobacco companies like RJ Reynolds and Philip Morris used their cigarette playbook to sell these ultra-processed products after acquiring international food companies like Nabisco and Kraft.
Those strategies include optimising formulations of carbohydrates and fats for rapid delivery, maximising “hedonic impact”, and creating products that “produce a quick hit of reward that fades” so people will come back for more quickly.
The parallels between ultra-processed foods (UPFs) and cigarettes include not only how UPF products were formulated and marketed to drive excess consumption, but also the growing body of evidence linking UPFs to a variety of health risks – including cardiovascular diseases, certain cancers and cognitive health decline.
During an AJPH press briefing last week, Cindy Leung, a Public Health Nutrition Professor at Harvard, said people whose diet contained high quantities of UPFs “had a 58% higher risk of developing dementia, a 46% higher risk of developing mild cognitive impairment, and a 47% higher risk of either of those two outcomes”.
Leung emphasised that these findings are based on observational studies – clinical trials on nutrition are often impractical – but argued that they are both significant and “biologically plausible”, meaning that there are strong theories about why UPFs might cause these health conditions.
Tera Fazzino, a Psychology Professor and Addiction Researcher at the University of Kansas, said during the briefing that for her study, she had examined more than 100 previously secret primary industry source documents from the tobacco industry.
“To develop their international food businesses, they use the same strategies they use to develop their international tobacco businesses,” she said.
They not only repeated old strategies for product formulation and marketing, but also aggressively acquired small food companies, she concluded.
“King-sized” food items imitated “king-sized cigarettes”, she pointed out.
Fazzino also explained that they developed light cigarettes in an explicit attempt to retain customers who might otherwise quit smoking due to concerns about the health harms, and later used this strategy to develop “light” and “reduced-fat” UPF products to retain customers.
Lunchables, a popular children’s food brand (not on South African shelves) were also developed using big tobacco strategies, said Laura Schmidt, a Health Policy Professor at UC San Francisco.
Philip Morris acquired Kraft in 1988, and launched Lunchables nationally shortly thereafter.
“Product designers at Philip Morris had a technique called consumer-driven product development, where they use psychological research on consumers …to understand their unconscious wants and needs,” Schmidt said during the briefing.
Since Kraft launched Lunchables under Philip Morris, it has become an independent company that merged with Heinz to form Kraft-Heinz. Philip Morris has since rebranded as Altria.
Altria and Kraft-Heinz did not respond to The Guardian’s requests for comment.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Big Tobacco deliberately targeting youth – WHO report
How Big Tobacco is slithering into wellness industry
US teen sues world’s top food companies over processed foods
Ultra-processed foods linked to 32 health problems, large review finds