Big Tobacco Fuels America’s Junk Food Diet and Obesity Epidemic

A study published in the journal Addiction on September 08, 2023 is making the claim that Big Tobacco engineered junk food loaded with fat, carbohydrates and sodium in combinations that are simply irresistible to people. These habit-forming foods were created by the same companies that brought us addictive cigarettes. 

 

The new research revealed that, after the government moved to regulate the tobacco industry in the 1960s, tobacco companies responded by investing heavily in food manufacturing to hook new customers. What tobacco companies chose to create in their newly acquired food companies was highly processed – or “ultra-processed”, to borrow a current buzzword – junk food that’s as addictive as tobacco. 

 

“These combinations don’t really exist in nature, so our bodies aren’t ready to handle them”, Tera Fazzino (left), assistant professor of psychology at the University of Kansas, said in a statement. 

 

“They can excessively trigger our brain’s reward system… which is why they’re difficult to resist”, she added. “These foods have combinations of ingredients that create effects you don’t get when you eat those ingredients separately”. 

 

Fazzino and her colleagues at KU analyzed the food brands owned by tobacco companies, which by the 1980s had invested heavily in the US food industry after tobacco sales began to decline. Tobacco giants like Philip Morris (which owned Kraft Foods and General Foods) and RJ Reynolds (which owned Del Monte Foods and Nabisco), started to research ways to make their foods irresistible. Scientists now refer to their sugary-sweet, fatty and salty creations as “hyperpalatable”. 

 

Soon, hyperpalatable foods like Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, Oreo cookies, Kool-Aid, Jell-O, Hawaiian Punch, Chips Ahoy! cookies, Lunchables, Triscuit and Ritz crackers, Oscar Mayer hot dogs and dozens of other goodies began appearing in store shelves – and filling consumers’ bellies. 

 

Around the same time that tobacco companies bought food makers, rates of obesity – and the subsequent increased risk for heart disease, stroke and diabetes – jumped across the US. Rates of obesity in the US had changed little during the 1960s and ’70s, according to the National Institutes of Health, but soon increased sharply: from 13.4% in 1980 to 34.3% in 2008 among adults, and from 5% to 17% among children. 

 

Now, an estimated 68% of the American food supply is hyperpalatable, and most of those were introduced to consumers when the food makers were owned by tobacco companies. (Note: Some of the aforementioned food makers are no longer owned by tobacco companies). 

 

According to Fazzino’s research team, foods developed by tobacco-owned corporations were 29% more likely to be fat-and-sodium hyperpalatable, and 80% more likely to be carbohydrate-and-sodium hyperpalatable, than foods that were not tobacco-owned. 

 

The tobacco firms’ interest in food wasn’t accidental: They had decades of extensive scientific research into flavorings, chemical additives and colorings that were used to market cigarettes. 

 

“RJ Reynolds (are) in the flavor business”, one insider wrote in a company memo, adding that many of the flavors the company had created for cigarettes “would be useful in food, beverage and other products”, leading to “large financial returns”, as reported by the Washington Post on September 19, 2023.

 

When Philip Morris first sold Lunchables in 1988, the packaged meal was marketed to busy moms. But it was so stuffed with sodium and fat that one Philip Morris exec referred to jokes that the healthiest thing in Lunchables was the napkin. 

 

The success of these hyperpalatable products is rooted in the science behind addiction, according to researchers. They contain ingredients – some natural, some synthetic – that have been purified, concentrated and are rapidly absorbed into our blood streams, amplifying their ability to light up our brains’ reward centers. 

 

“Every addictive substance is something that we take from nature and we alter it, process it and refine it in a way that makes it more rewarding – and that is very clearly what happened with these hyper-palatable food substances”, Ashley Gearhardt, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan who studies food addiction. 

 

“We treat these foods like they come from nature. Instead, they’re foods that come from big tobacco”. That’s why people who eat hyperpalatable foods are more prone to obesity and other health problems, even when they don’t intend to overeat. 

 

“These foods may be designed to make you eat more than you planned,” Fazzino said. “It’s not just about personal choice and watching what you eat – they can kind of trick your body into eating more than you actually want”. 

 

 

PMI's Sneaky Subversion

On May 31, the world came together for World No Tobacco Day – the idea was to specifically draw attention to the abusive business practices of the tobacco industry. It was about raising awareness on the harmful and deadly effects of tobacco use and second-hand smoke exposure, and discouraging the use of tobacco in any form. 

But this year, Philip Morris International, one of the chief profiteers and drivers of tobacco dependence wanted to subvert the Day – by rebranding it as “World No Smoking Day” and insidiously inserting their own smoke-free tobacco campaign called “It’s Time to Unsmoke” – they were pushing their “heat-not-burn” tobacco products. 

AFP reported that the world’s biggest tobacco company, which makes Marlboro cigarettes, have been popularizing their vaping and heated tobacco products as less harmful alternatives to traditional cigarettes and claiming that the former releases far fewer toxins. 

Vinayak Prasad, head of WHO’s Tobacco Free Initiative, told AFP: “We regard the PMI campaign as little more than a cynical attempt by the company to promote (their) deadly products”. 

I had dutifully searched but I know there is no independent science backing PMI’s “harm reduction” claims – therefore, the assertion that the smokeless tobacco products could help people quit smoking is false. 

Don’t be deceived – this is a PR campaign, nothing more. 

In the last two years, PMI launched Foundation for a Smoke-Free World (of which it remains the sole funder), started a life insurance business that incentivizes tobacco use and announced an “anti-smoking campaign” that encourages smokers to use its latest tobacco product, IQOS, instead of its other tobacco products. 

[Note: IQOS is a tobacco heating system. It heats the tobacco at temperatures below that of combustion, causing nicotine and other compounds to aerolize just enough to release a flavorful nicotine-containing tobacco vapor but without burning the tobacco]. 

Don’t be gullible – you can’t just make an arbitrary distinction between smoking and tobacco – as if smoking is bad for your health but tobacco is not. 

Philip Morris launched IQOS in Malaysia last November, selling it at selected specialty stores in Greater KL, Penang, and Johor Bahru. 

PMI are wanting to get 30% of their customers to switch to smoke-free products by 2025 Their ambition is for at least 30% of their customers who would otherwise continue smoking, the equivalent of 40 million people, to switch to their smoke-free products by 2025.  

In fact, tobacco giant PMI describe themselves as a disruptive insider challenging the status quo by cutting demand for cigarettes while simultaneously growing the market for smoke-free alternatives. Meaning, the market leader aims to exit the very category that made its name. 

But that doesn’t change anything because IQOS still contains nicotine. And even if the levels of chemicals it releases are significantly reduced compared to cigarette smoke – it does not translate into lesser harm. IQOS is still as bad as a cigarette. It is equally dangerous. 

On Tuesday, I attended the Shah Alam Toastmasters meeting – where I was both Toastmaster of the Evening and an assignment speaker.

I delivered a CC#4 How to Say It speech. A speech sketched by despondency.

I spoke of angry brushstrokes as I fiercely slapped black and white hues onto a blank canvas. I had painted a mournful nighttime scene where winter was already lurking nearby. I had colored a sorrowful landscape that wept out its grief. It was a painting that expressed my crestfallen emotions. I called it Winter is Coming.

And the person who gave me feedback happened to be the General Evaluator too. She was uncharitable – but I didn’t mind. I had taken the stand that good feedback will help me be a better speaker.

Scotland Wants Plain Cigarette Packaging

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Plain cigarette packaging is to be introduced in Scotland under a plan to make the nation "tobacco free" by 2034.

 

The tobacco industry is having none of it and is again sabre-rattling, warning that it is ready to sue the Scottish Government for up to £500 million in damages if plans to introduce plain packaging for cigarettes go ahead.

 

The Scotsman has learned the figure has been privately briefed to MSPs (Members of the Scottish Parliament) by tobacco giant Philip Morris, based on the loss of intellectual property rights. While the firm will not publicly threaten legal action, court cases are under way in Australia, where plain packaging has been introduced, making the prospect of similar action in Scotland “likely”, according to company sources.

 

But the Scottish Government insists it will bring forward legislation for plain packaging, despite the possibility of legal action. Scotland has already led the way in the UK with moves such as banning smoking in public buildings and introducing minimum pricing for alcohol.

 

The £500 million figure has been revealed as Philip Morris, whose brands include Marlboro, and L&M publishes its evidence to the UK government’s review into plain packaging, in which it claims the move has no impact on smoking levels, based on evidence from Australia, and has actually led to an increase in black-market tobacco.

 

However, supporters of plain packaging claim its introduction will reduce smoking by removing a means of advertising from the tobacco companies. They also point out Scotland spends about £500m on tobacco-related health problems.

 

The Scottish Government has committed to introduce standardised packaging for tobacco products – commonly referred to as plain packaging – and is expected to legislate in the 2014-15 parliamentary session.

 

Public health minister Michael Matheson made it clear he wanted Scotland to lead the way with a measure that Prime Minister David Cameron has been reluctant to introduce in England. He said: “We are determined to see Scotland remain at the forefront of countries committed to bold action to reduce the harm caused by tobacco".

 

The Australian government last year won a legal battle with the tobacco companies on plain packaging, but it is facing challenges through the World Trade Organisation.

 

But this is where the tobacco industry is clutching at straws. If as it says plain packaging doesn’t work, then why is it so enthusiastic about threatening to sue the government?