Nutritionists working to fight the nations' obesity epidemic want to have sugar classified as a controlled substance.

Researchers at the University of California in San Francisco want the government to tax any processed food that have added sugar, including cereal and juice.

They say sugar can be as addictive as alcohol or drugs and nutrition labels aren't working.

The bans shouldn’t be on consumers only, researchers argue. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration should consider removing sugar from its "Generally  Regarded As Safe" designation that allows companies to add as much of an ingredient or nutrient as they want to processed foods.

Experts agree that the current approaches to addressing chronic diseases aren’t working very well. But they say the solutions will need to go beyond regulating one aspect of the food supply.