Prof Ashley Gearhardt of the University of Michigan, a clinical psychologist specialising in addiction, said her patients made the same links: “They would say, ‘I feel addicted to this stuff, I crave it – I used to smoke cigarettes [and] now I have the same habit but it’s with soda and doughnuts. I know it’s killing me; I want to quit, but I can’t.’”
The debate around UPFs fits a well-worn pattern in the field of addiction, according to Gearhardt. She said: “We just blame it on the individual for a while and say ‘oh, you know, just smoke in moderation, drink in moderation’ – and eventually we get to a point where we understand the levers that the industry can pull to create products that can really hook people.”
Read the complete article in The Guardian
