US tobacco companies selectively disseminated hyper‐palatable foods into the US food system: Empirical evidence and current implications

Abstract

AbstractBackground and aimsUS tobacco companies owned leading US food companies from 1980 to 2001. We measured whether hyper‐palatable foods (HPF) were disproportionately developed in tobacco‐owned food companies, resulting in substantial tobacco‐related influence on the US food system.DesignThe study involved a review of primary industry documents to identify food brands that were tobacco company‐owned. Data sets from the US Department of Agriculture were integrated to facilitate longitudinal analyses estimating the degree to which foods were formulated to be hyper‐palatable, based on tobacco ownership.Setting and casesUnited States Department of Agriculture data sets were used to identify HPF foods that were (n = 105) and were not (n = 587) owned by US tobacco companies from 1988 to 2001.MeasurementsA standardized definition from Fazzino et al. (2019) was used to identify HPF. HPF items were identified overall and by HPF group: fat and sodium HPF, fat and sugar HPF and carbohydrates and sodium HPF.FindingsTobacco‐owned foods were 29% more likely to be classified as fat and sodium HPF and 80% more likely to be classified as carbohydrate and sodium HPF than foods that were not tobacco‐owned between 1988 and 2001 (P‐values = 0.005–0.009). The availability of fat and sodium HPF (> 57%) and carbohydrate and sodium HPF (> 17%) was high in 2018 regardless of prior tobacco‐ownership status, suggesting widespread saturation into the food system.ConclusionsTobacco companies appear to have selectively disseminated hyper‐palatable foods into the US food system between 1988 and 2001.