Ultra-processed foods are industrially formulated with added sugar, artificial sweeteners, additives and flavourings to be highly rewarding and even addictive. They can alter the brain’s reward pathways the same way that other addictive substances do, making them challenging to consume in moderation.

In fact, a body of scientific research has emerged in recent years to show that some ultra-processed foods can be as addictive as cigarettes and cocaine.

Several major food brands were once owned by the world’s largest tobacco companies. Evidence suggests the same tactics used to formulate and market cigarettes were used in the creation of food products.

Manufacturers of ultra-processed foods often seek to find the most alluring combination of salt, sugar and fat in their products. This point of perfection is known as “the bliss point,” a term coined by American market researcher and food scientist Howard Moskowitz in the 1990s.

“The bliss point is just that sensory profile where you like food the most,” Moskowitz, who is known for his work on soft drinks and pasta sauces, told RetroReport. “There is no one bliss point. There are groups of bliss points.”

Manufacturers usually work to locate the bliss point through rigorous focus-group testing, alongside the use of psychological research. The bliss point triggers dopamine – a neurotransmitter in the brain that is responsible for feelings of pleasure and well-being – to spike, then crash. This brings about good feelings, then bad feelings and generates the craving for more of those good feelings.

Food companies not only research taste but also consumers’ responses to the colour, smell and “mouth feel” of products. And sometimes food scientists tweak a specific ingredient in products, like the salt, sugar or fat itself, Michael Moss writes in his book, “Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us.”

For example, food scientists have changed the shape of fat globules to improve how products feel in the mouth. And they’ve ground salt finer, which helps the flavour hit the taste buds faster for an “improved flavour burst.”

“One hallmark of addiction is the speed with which substances hit the brain,” Moss explains in his 2021 follow-up book, Hooked: Food, Free Will, and How the Food Giants Exploit Our Addictions.

Moss said, “Measured in milliseconds and the power to addict, nothing is faster than processed food in rousing the brain.”

Along with speed, “addiction is also deeply enmeshed with memory and the memories we create for food are typically stronger and longer lasting than any other substance. Childhood memories of food can wield an uncanny power over our eating habits for the rest of our lives.”

Today, about 57 per cent of the calories American adults consume comes from ultra-processed foods. That percentage rises to 67 per cent in American children.

According to the UConn Rudd Centre for Food Policy and Health, the food industry spends about $14 billion annually on advertising, with 80 per cent of that devoted to highly processed foods and a significant portion toward advertising to children and racial minority groups.

Senator Bernie Sanders (VT), in a call for strong warning labels on ultra-processed foods to combat the obesity and diabetes epidemics in the US, wrote in a letter to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on February 15: “For far too long, the food and beverage industry has been allowed to use deceptive and misleading tactics to entice children to eat foods and consume beverages loaded up with sugar, salt and saturated fats that are purposely designed to be overeaten.”

Tying together concerns around food addiction and rising rates of chronic diseases in the US, Ashley Gearhardt, professor of psychology at the University of Michigan and a leading expert in food addiction, wrote a 2023 testimony before the US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labour and Pensions titled, “What is Fuelling the Diabetes Epidemic?”

Gearhardt said: “Scientific body of evidence suggests that addictive processes play an important role in contributing to patterns of ultra-processed food intake implicated in poor health, obesity, and diabetes.

“If addictive mechanisms are being triggered by ultra-processed foods, this may be an overlooked reason why it can be challenging to reduce intake of ultra-processed foods even in the face of health conditions like diabetes.”

What is the evidence that ultra-processed foods are addictive?

A 2023 review of 281 studies in 36 countries found that “the combination of refined carbohydrates and fats often found in ultra-processed foods seems to have a supra-additive effect on brain reward systems, above either macronutrient alone, which may increase the addictive potential of these foods.”

Overall, the researchers found that 14 per cent of adults and 12 per cent of children were addicted to ultra-processed foods, which is “similar to the levels of addiction seen for other legal substances in adults (e.g., 14 per cent for alcohol and 18 per cent for tobacco),” the authors added.

The research, published in The BMJ, noted: “The speed at which UPFs [ultra-processed foods] deliver carbohydrates and fats to the gut may also be important to their addictive potential. Drugs and routes of administration that affect the brain more quickly have a higher addictive potential.”

The authors also noted the social justice implications of ultra-processed food addiction.

They wrote: “People facing food insecurity are more reliant on UPFs to meet their daily energy needs and are more likely to exhibit higher levels of UPF addiction.”

In a study published in JAMA Psychiatry in 2011 researchers examined neural activity in 48 women with high “food addiction” (FA) scores using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

They found that, while “there were limited differences in reward circuitry activation between participants with high FA and low FA during food intake, the high food addiction group exhibited patterns of neural activation associated with reduced inhibitory control.”

This suggests “that consumption of a palatable food may override desires to limit caloric food consumption in participants with high FA, resulting in disinhibited food consumption.”

The study authors concluded: “Similar patterns of neural activation are implicated in addictive-like eating behaviour and substance dependence: elevated activation in reward circuitry in response to food cues and reduced activation of inhibitory regions in response to food intake.”

Withdrawal is a key component of addiction. With this in mind, researchers conducted a review to determine whether highly processed (HP) foods are linked to withdrawal symptoms in animals and humans.

The research, published in the journal Obesity Reviews in 2022, found: “Evidence suggests that HP food withdrawal occurs in animals. Well-controlled experimental animal studies have demonstrated behavioural and biological indicators of HP food withdrawal, which follow a similar time course to other addictive substances.

“Anecdotal and self-report evidence also suggests that humans experience withdrawal-like symptoms when they attempt to reduce their intake of HP foods.”

In an editorial published in Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, study authors wrote that the increase in ultra-processed foods consumption in the US, notably increased in the 1980s when tobacco corporations bought major food companies, including General Foods and Kraft in the 1980s. The corporations soon became the largest manufacturers of ultra-processed foods.

In the commentary, which was published in 2022, they wrote that the same strategies used to market cigarettes were then used to advertise highly processed foods, particularly to children, by “reinforcing UPFs with optimal combinations of rewarding ingredients (e.g., fat, sugar) to maximise palatability and profitability.”

It’s also important to note “that food addiction is prevalent across weight classes (e.g. 12-17 per cent of youths and adults with normal weight) and exhibits similar associations, regardless of BMI [body mass index], with addiction risk factors (e.g. impulsivity), poorer quality of life, compulsive eating behaviours, and increased physical and psychological comorbidities.”

They concluded: “The lessons learned from past addiction epidemics are relevant for the negative public health consequences of food addiction and UPFs, particularly the need for policies that reduce the accessibility of UPFs in the modern food environment, reformulate UPFs to reduce their addictive potentials, and minimize risks for children and adolescents to develop food addiction.”

“Ultra-processed foods … were consistently more associated with [the Yale Food Addiction Scale or YFAS] indicators than were naturally occurring, minimally processed foods,” according to the study authors of a review titled, “Is Food Addictive?,” republished in 2021 in the Annual Review of Nutrition.

The authors stated: “Notably, ultra-processed foods were significantly more problematic for individuals who endorsed experiencing elevated YFAS symptoms of addictive-like eating, providing further support for the role of ultra-processed foods in food addiction.”

They concluded: “As with addictive drugs, some (but not all) individuals exhibit an addictive pattern of consumption marked by diminished control over intake, intense cravings, and an inability to cut down despite negative consequences.

“Higher YFAS scores are associated with mechanisms implicated in addictive disorders and poorer clinical outcomes.”

• The Defender report