Love having cookies? Can’t stop eating those chips?

It could be an addiction. 

In a recent study, researchers at the University of Michigan and Virginia Tech determined that ultra-processed foods like fries, sugary drinks, cookies, etc., can be as addictive as tobacco. 

To prove their theory of food addiction, the study’s authors based their study on the scientific criteria set for tobacco products to classify them as addictive. The criteria, taken from the 1988 US Surgeon General’s report, specifies that consuming tobacco leads to: 

• Compulsive use
• Psychoactivity or mood-altering effects
• Reinforcement or being rewarding enough for the person to continue using
• Triggering strong urges or cravings  

The study’s results, published in the journal “Addiction,” show how consuming processed foods meet each criteria as they contain complex substances and chemicals, similar to tobacco. Thus, Highly processed foods (HPFs) can be considered addictive substances and meet the criteria to be labeled as addictive substances using the standards set for tobacco products.

“It is the ability of tobacco products such as cigarettes to deliver nicotine rapidly and in high doses that is key to their addictive potential,” the study specifies. Similarly, junk foods can rapidly deliver high doses of refined carbohydrates and/or fat, promoting potential addiction.

“We see that people use tobacco products and highly processed foods for many of the same reasons — to reduce negative moods and to increase positive moods — and the degree to which these substances are mood altering is extremely similar,” Ashley Gearhardt, one of the authors, said to the Insider.