Personally I would argue that the addiction simply shifted for most Americans. It was cigarettes, now it is food, particularly ultra-processed food.
There's a large subset of people, the majority in my opinion, who are somewhat prone to addiction. Most are just a wee bit prone. They certainly won't peruse the streets for drugs. But, if something is readily available and socially accepted, they'll do it.
Before this was smoking, now its ultra-processed foods. Fast food, junk food, sweets type stuff.
It's probably still a boon, I'd say. I mean, I think being obese is probably healthier than smoking. But we didn't really "solve" anything, we just moved the problem.
The connection is even closer. Tobacco company extensively invested in the highly processed food industry and brought their advertisement experts in. The obesity crisis (and addiction to sugary and fatty processed foods) is not an accident, it's the result of a sophisticated advertisement campaign directed by the brains behind tobacco and alcohol campaigns.
I mean, of course I have no evidence because nobody is really looking into it. In my opinion, despite the fact we have many tens if not hundreds of millions of people eating themselves to death, we (socially) are incredibly hesitant to consider overconsumption an addiction.
But when people are dying slowly, and painfully, by their own hand and they can't stop, I personally consider that an addiction. In addition, we know ultra-processed foods are designed to invoke as much pleasure in the user as possible. In many ways, they suffer the same hyper-optimization that modern cigarettes do.
There's also some* evidence that part of the Tobacco industry shifted to food as Tobacco in the US died off. This is more circumstantial evidence. I think the "hard" evidence is that everyone smoked and was thin, now nobody smokes, and everyone is obese.
Regardless, I think we need harder and more proven solutions to the obesity epidemic. I think "willpower!" isn't working out for us, on a large scale. I'm rooting for Ozempic. And, fun fact, Ozempic also curbs nicotine and alcohol addiction.
Not very surprising, considering it’s the same companies using the same playbook. I’m not so sure that being obese is healthier than smoking, being obese might not give you cancer but it will certainly mess with your heart, and I would not be surprised if someone who smoked for the same amount of time someone else was obese ends up having a better prognosis after quitting.
There's a large subset of people, the majority in my opinion, who are somewhat prone to addiction. Most are just a wee bit prone. They certainly won't peruse the streets for drugs. But, if something is readily available and socially accepted, they'll do it.
Before this was smoking, now its ultra-processed foods. Fast food, junk food, sweets type stuff.
It's probably still a boon, I'd say. I mean, I think being obese is probably healthier than smoking. But we didn't really "solve" anything, we just moved the problem.