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The Deck Is Stacked Against Healthy Eating
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of New York Times
Posted: August 31st, 2026
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/17/opinion/ultraprocessed-fo...
Big Food and Big Tech know that the products they are marketing to children are not healthy in a variety of ways. The tobacco giant Philip Morris — which owned Kraft Foods from 1988 to 2007 — used the research, development and marketing strategies it honed to sell cigarettes to hook schoolchildren on sodium-and-sugar-laden products. We know as much as we do about the way the food industry targets kids with unhealthy food because of the trove of documents released by lawsuits against tobacco companies. Through her years of work analyzing these documents, Laura A. Schmidt, a professor at the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies at U.C.S.F., discovered that Philip Morris used what the company called “technical synergies” between its tobacco and food products. Her paper in The American Journal of Public Health focuses on the development and marketing of Lunchables. Lunchables combine processed meats, cheeses and breads in stackable piles in a plastic tray. These “synergies” included chemical additives and “avor encapsulation technology,” also used in cigarettes and other packaged foods. “Philip Morris applied its ‘better for you’ reformulation strategy, rst used to create ltered Marlboro cigarettes, to develop Low-Fat Lunchables in efforts to keep consumers worried about childhood obesity loyal to the brand” in the mid-90s, Schmidt’s paper notes — but these “healthier” Lunchables weren’t much more nutritious than the originals, even if they were lower in fat.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on health and food system corruption.
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