Put your Pringles can down for a minute and read this:

A study by researchers at three United States universities claims to have identified similarities between the addictive characteristics of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) and cigarettes, and has recommended similar levels of regulation.

According to the study, which was published this week in the Milbank Quarterly healthcare journal, UPFs “share key engineering strategies adopted from the tobacco industry” which are designed to drive “compulsive consumption.”

Designed?

UPFs are not just nutrients but [are] intentionally designed, highly engineered and manipulated, hedonically optimized products.

Hedonically? This sounds like something that would be used to target oppressed communities with a dangerous illusion.

Responding to the Milbank Quarterly study, Dr. Githinji Gitahi, the chief executive of Kenya-based NGO Amref Health Africa, warned of a “growing public health alarm” across Africa.

“Corporate [organizations] have found a comfortable, and profitable, nexus: weak government regulation on harmful products and a changing pattern of consumption,” he told The Guardian. “This places new and preventable pressures on already stretched health systems.”