Ultraprocessed foods like sodas and sweets should be regulated like cigarettes: study – CTV
February 03, 2026
Ultraprocessed foods like sugary sodas and sweets are “carefully engineered” to encourage consumption and should be regulated like cigarettes, according to a new study.
Published Monday in The Milbank Quarterly, a peer-reviewed health-care journal, the study examines how the design, marketing and distribution of ultraprocessed foods mirrors tactics employed by the tobacco industry. Like industrial tobacco products, many ultraprocessed foods are strongly associated with serious health risks that can include heart disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity.
“Some ultraprocessed foods have crossed a line,” study co-author and University of Michigan psychology professor Ashley Gearhardt said in a news release.
“Products like soda, sweets and fast food are engineered less like food and more like cigarettes — optimized for craving, rapid intake, and repeated use. That level of harm demands regulatory action aimed at industry design and marketing, not individual willpower.”
Drawing on addiction science, nutrition and public health history, Gearhardt and researchers from Duke University and Harvard found several parallels between ultraprocessed foods and industrial tobacco products, which are designed to quickly deliver nicotine and trigger cravings.
