Big Tobacco's Playbook: How Cigarette Marketing Tactics Sold Ultra-Processed Foods to Children

A new issue of the American Journal of Public Health has surfaced something unsettling: the playbook that sold cigarettes to millions was dusted off and used to sell ultra-processed foods to children. The parallels are not metaphorical. Tobacco companies like Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds, after acquiring food manufacturers including Kraft and Nabisco, applied the same product engineering and marketing tactics that had hooked smokers to engineer foods designed to create rapid cycles of craving and consumption.

The health consequences are mounting. Cindy Leung, a public health nutrition professor at Harvard, presented findings during an American Journal of Public Health press briefing on Tuesday showing that people whose diets were heavy in ultra-processed foods faced a 58 percent higher risk of developing dementia, a 46 percent higher risk of mild cognitive impairment, and a 47 percent higher risk of either condition. Beyond the brain, the research links these foods to cardiovascular disease, certain cancers, and broader cognitive decline. Leung was careful to note these findings come from observational studies rather than controlled clinical trials—nutrition research of that scale is often impractical—but she emphasized the results are both statistically significant and biologically plausible, meaning there are sound theories for why ultra-processed foods might cause these harms.

Tera Fazzino, an addiction researcher and psychology professor at the University of Kansas, examined over 100 previously secret documents from the tobacco industry archives. What she found was methodical and deliberate: the same strategies used to develop international tobacco businesses were repurposed to develop international food businesses. The formulations themselves were engineered with precision—carbohydrates and fats optimized for rapid delivery, designed to maximize what the industry calls "hedonic impact," creating products that deliver a quick reward that fades fast enough to send consumers back for more. Even the packaging mimicked tobacco strategy: "king-sized" food items echoed "king-sized" cigarettes. When tobacco companies developed light cigarettes to retain customers worried about health risks, they later applied the same logic to "light" and "reduced-fat" ultra-processed foods.

Lunchables, the ubiquitous children's lunch kit, exemplifies this approach. Philip Morris acquired Kraft in 1988 and launched Lunchables nationally shortly after. Laura Schmidt, a health policy professor at UC San Francisco, explained that product designers at Philip Morris used what they called consumer-driven product development—psychological research on consumers designed to access their unconscious wants and needs. Lunchables were engineered to fulfill children's underlying drives for independence, autonomy, and play. The product was not an accident of convenience; it was a calculated appeal to childhood psychology.

The research has gained traction partly because the "Make America Healthy Again" movement has brought ultra-processed foods into public conversation, though Marion Nestle, a nutritionist and public health professor emerita at New York University, noted that movement is more feelings-based than science-based. Still, Lindsey Smith Taillie, a nutrition professor at the Gillings School of Global Public Health, credited the movement for shifting the narrative away from personal responsibility and willpower toward the real culprit: the food industry that manufactures, sells, and markets these products, especially to children.

But policy is moving in the wrong direction. The Trump administration has made changes that could worsen the problem. Corn subsidies, which have made the United States heavily dependent on high fructose corn syrup—a key ingredient in countless ultra-processed foods—remain untouched. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which helps lower-income families afford whole foods, is facing enrollment reductions. Nestle pointed out the administration is "trying in every way possible to reduce Snap enrolments. That's going in the wrong direction." Since Kraft became independent and merged with Heinz to form Kraft-Heinz, and Philip Morris rebranded as Altria, both companies declined to respond to requests for comment. The machinery that created the problem remains largely unaccountable, and the policy levers that might address it are being pulled in the opposite direction.