Addictive Junk Food: A Simple Story for a Complex Problem

David Kessler is the former FDA Commissioner who laid the groundwork for aggressive tobacco regulation with a simple metaphor. He argued that nicotine is addictive like heroin or cocaine. Now he and many others are working to stretch that metaphor to warn the public about addictive junk food. It is a simple and very appealing story to explain a complex problem. In a new essay, he sets up the story:

“These foods typically are called ultra-processed, but I refer to them as ultra-formulated because they have been engineered to manipulate the brain’s reward system. These foods have become the new cigarette, and similarly, have resulted in a health catastrophe.”

He believes GLP-1 medicines are so necessary today mainly because of ultra-processed foods.

The Villain

A compelling story needs a villain and in this story of obesity and the health problems that come from it, that villain is the food industry. This narrative is quite compelling. And in the case of the tobacco industry, the addiction narrative worked quite well. People can live full and happy lives without cigarettes. They are an easy, singular target.

But the food industry is much more expansive and essential. Where cigarettes are simple, food is complex. Most of our food comes in the form of foods that qualify as ultra-processed.

Food Is Complex

The enormously appealing narrative of addictive junk food glosses over a fundamental fact about food. The substance of the food we eat – whether it is whole and unprocessed or ultra-processed – is enormously complex. A new review article in the New England Journal of Medicine makes this abundantly clear. Giulia Menichetti, Albert-László Barabási, and Joseph Loscalzo write:

“Evidence suggests that more than 139,000 chemicals in food together modulate a large number of human proteins. Approximately 2000 of these food molecules are currently used as drugs. Thus, there is an enormous pool of chemicals with subcellular roles that remain unknown.”

They argue that the molecular complexity of food creates a tremendous opportunity to unlock its therapeutic potential. But, they say, we are only at the beginning of this journey to understand this complexity.

By comparison, genuinely addictive substances like nicotine or heroin are utterly simple.

Social and Economic Systems Add Further Complexity

But human interaction with food adds much more to the complexity of food, its importance, and its effects on us. We seek and prepare food for pleasure, we enjoy it in many different contexts, and unfortunately now, it is at our fingertips everywhere we turn. Even if we fully understood the substance of the food the industry produces, social and economic systems create another layer of complexity. Food marketing taps into these systems to ensure that we consume ever more.

It is not just the substance of the food we eat that is making us fat. The rituals and context for its consumption are woven into our lives. Naive efforts to regulate food marketing as if mere advertising rules will take care of the problem will fail.

The Simplistic Metaphor Fails

This complexity is why the simplistic metaphor of addictive junk food can lead us badly astray in efforts to overcome obesity. Every complex problem has a solution that is simple, plausible, and wrong. Obesity epitomizes this. Overcoming the problem will require more realistic approaches.

Click here for free access to Kessler’s essay and here for the new review article by Menichetti et al.

Tessellation of Carrots and Chips, illustration from Gemini AI image generation

Subscribe by email to follow the accumulating evidence and observations that shape our view of health, obesity, and policy.

May 8, 2025