Are the tobacco companies behind the proliferation of unhealthy junk foods and fast food? Well, a new study from the University of Kansas has found that the big tobacco firms also own a great many fast food and junk food companies.
Tobacco companies invested heavily in the U.S. food industry in the 1980s, said the study’s authors.
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The study published in the journal Addiction involved a review of primary industry documents to identify food brands that were tobacco company-owned. Data sets from the US Department of Agriculture were integrated to facilitate longitudinal analyses estimating the degree to which foods were formulated to be hyper-palatable, based on tobacco ownership.
The study checked the rate of “hyper-palatable” foods (HPF) among those offered. These are foods that are tasty to the eater – fast foods and junk foods – but offer a low ration of nutrients to calories and so are highly fattening. First described by KU scientist Tera Fazzino in 2019, hyper-palatable foods have specific combinations of fat, sugar, sodium and carbohydrates that make them artificially rewarding to eat and harder to stop consuming. Think about how when you eat a lot of certain foods you never feel satiated.
Foods owned by tobacco firms were found to be 29% more likely to be classified as fat and sodium HPF and 80% more likely to be classified as carbohydrate and sodium HPF than foods that were not tobacco-owned between 1988 and 2001 (P-values = 0.005–0.009). The availability of fat and sodium HPF (> 57%) and carbohydrate and sodium HPF (> 17%) was high in 2018 regardless of prior tobacco-ownership status, suggesting widespread saturation into the food system.
We have always known that tobacco is bad for your health. It causes cancer, emphysema, heart disease and many other problems. We also know that eating a lot of junk food and fast food is bad for your health too. It makes us fat which can lead to developing type two diabetes. It also leads to clogging of the arteries, heart problems and more.
Now, put that together with smoking and you really have a problem.
“We used multiple sources of data to examine the question, ‘In what ways were U.S. tobacco companies involved in the promotion and spread of hyperpalatable food into our food system?’” said lead author Tera Fazzino, assistant professor of psychology at KU and associate director of the Cofrin Logan Center for Addiction Research and Treatment at the KU Life Span Institute. “Hyperpalatable foods can be irresistible and difficult to stop eating. They have combinations of palatability-related nutrients, specifically fat, sugar, sodium or other carbohydrates that occur in combinations together.”
The KU scientists determined that “Tobacco companies appear to have selectively disseminated hyper-palatable foods into the US food system between 1988 and 2001.”
So, they are experts at producing and disseminating consumables that are both addictive and harmful to one’s health.
