The End of Overeating Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite

The End of Overeating Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite

Conditioned hypereating is a biological challenge, not a character flaw, says Kessler, former FDA commissioner under presidents Bush and Clinton). Here Kessler (A Question of Intent) describes how, since the 1980s, the food industry, in collusion with the advertising industry, and lifestyle changes have short-circuited the body’s self-regulating mechanisms, leaving many at the mercy of reward-driven eating. Through the evidence of research, personal stories (including candid accounts of his own struggles) and examinations of specific foods produced by giant food corporations and restaurant chains, Kessler explains how the desire to eat—as distinct from eating itself—is stimulated in the brain by an almost infinite variety of diabolical combinations of salt, fat and sugar. Although not everyone succumbs, more people of all ages are being set up for a lifetime of food obsession due to the ever-present availability of foods laden with salt, fat and sugar. A gentle though urgent plea for reform, Kessler’s book provides a simple food rehab program to fight back against the industry’s relentless quest for profits while an entire country of people gain weight and get sick. According to Kessler, persistence is all that is needed to make the perceptual shifts and find new sources of rewards to regain control. (May)
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User Ratings and Reviews

3 Stars Not terribly insightful . . .
I found this book only marginally insightful. The basic premise is that foods that are high in sugar, fat, and salt are virtually addictive, and the food industry works hard to create and market these foods. Some may find this surprising, but this seems like old news to me. The chief problem I found with the book is that, at least to my mind, Dr. Kessler did not focus sufficiently on the extreme unhealthfulness of these foods and how over-consumption of modern foods sets people up for truly dreadful diseases, including diabetes. Kessler’s idea of controlling one’s intake of these foods was more focused on changing one’s thought process to something like “I won’t have that food because I know I will feel terrible about myself afterwards.” For me at least, knowing I won’t feel good about myself after eating certain foods was not enough for me to stop eating them. I stopped only after I genuinely understood, from other sources, how terribly unhealthy many of the foods in the Western diet are for us (including sugary foods, and foods made with refined flours and high-fructose corn syrup). I am not only longer attracted to these foods, but I actually find them disgusting and repellant. I would spend my money on books like Real Foods (Nina Planck), Omnivore’s Dilemma, and In Defense of Food. I found these books far more helpful in thinking about food choices. Also, I found the format of the book somewhat scattered and unfocused.

5 Stars Mind over muffins!
Anybody gain weight around Christmas? From Thanksgiving through New Year’s I gain between five and ten pounds. It’s inevitable. Although I don’t bake Christmas cookies and only overeat at a few holiday meals, the countertops at my office are filled with sweets the entire holiday season . . . sweets sent to us by companies to thank us for our business. The holidays are my “danger zone”. Sound familiar?

After reading this book, I now understand why. Mr Kessler, former FDA Commissioner under Presidents Clinton and Bush, explains that foods high in fat and sugar create opoids (or endomorphins), which are chemicals produced in the brain that reward us in a similar way morphine and heroin reward the drug addict. I am addicted to sweets during the holiday season. The more I eat them, the more I want to eat them.

Many have this problem year-round. Research by Kathryn Flegal revealed that in 1960 the average weight of women between 20 and 29 was 128 pounds. In the year 2000, it was 157 pounds. She astutely noticed another trend . . . weight gain was not evenly distributed across the population. People already overweight were becoming more overweight, while leaner people were gaining less weight.

How often have you heard people complain that their weight is due to their metabolism or lack of exercise? Recent research has shown that metabolism and level of exercise are less important than diet. Gerald Smith identified the term “orosensory self stimulation”, describing our behavior of eating more of any delicious food we enjoy. One brownie turns into two. Sixteen potato chips turn into the whole bag. Four slices of pizza turns into eight. And so on, and so on.

The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite tells us, step by step, how to get control of these impulses. We have to develop rules to guide our behavior. Even though I walk right past the food counter at my office 30 times a day, I can develop a rule that I will have one sweet after lunch. It isn’t easy . . . Mr. Kessler tells us in the introduction that we are the “target” of the food industry. Although that is just business I guess, we need to change how we look at food or we will never have the bodies and good health we’d like to have. Mr. Kessler also shares the warning signs in children, so we can help them before overeating becomes a lifelong habit. What can we do to stop being victims of the food industry? Stop buying and eating crap, and start buying and eating good wholesome foods like fruits, vegetables and whole grains. If enough of us join the movement to better health, the food industry will have to listen.

Lynette Fleming, Coauthor of Lunch Buddies: Buddy Up for a Better Diet

2 Stars 336 pages for this?
I bought the book after seeing the author on Bill Maher and Colbert. I was hoping for some real insight into compulsive eating, something I’ve struggled with since childhood, but was disappointed.

To begin with, the title is quite misleading; there’s little about “ending overeating” and “taking control of the American appetite.”

Virtually everything the author asserts, most people with even a passing familiarity with overeating already know:

1. Overeating can lead to addictive behaviors that compound overeating

2. Diets don’t work

3. Fast foods, processed foods, and corporate foods are loaded with fat, sugar, and salt

4. The manufacturers combine these ingredients (and ramp up the advertising) to make the foods more enticing and irresistible

5. You have to reformulate your thinking about food by changing your behaviors and thought patterns

No kidding, Dr. Kessler? I could have gotten that from a one-hour episode of Oprah.

As an aside, please be forewarned. For some bizarre reason, Kessler goes on at length (and I mean, AT LENGTH) detailing all the ingredients that are in all the foods you shouldn’t eat. I actually found myself craving the foods he was describing; everything on the menu at Chili’s, the history of Cinn-a-bon; Starbucks frappucinos, yadda, yadda…. WE GET IT ALREADY!

I’m sorry but it seems to me that a book about overating shouldn’t induce the munchies.

And the resolution–that we can somehow end our lifelong patterns of overeating by avoiding unhealthy foods and somehow reconditioning our brains to not think about it–seems utterly ineffectual. Earlier in the book, the author cites the futility of the “mind over matter” approach by citing the old saw: try not to think of an elephant and you will, of course, think of an elephant. Then he winds up by recommending that his readers do just that when it comes to the food we shouldn’t eat.

Really, Dr. Kessler? You avoid those fattening dumplings you love by simply taking a different route past the restaurant? WOW! Why didn’t I think of that?

5 Stars What we are facing as a nation!
I just finished listening to the audio version of this book. I started with some doubts, and ended with respect and admiration for what Dr. Kessler has done. In today’s world it seems that everyone, including many scientists, are selling something. I sensed none of this in Kessler’s book.

For those who may have forgotten, Kessler is the FDA Commissioner who attempted to regulate the tobacco industry’s secret manipulation of nicotine content in cigarettes. He dragged a doubting and cautious FDA along with him, and almost made it until the US Supreme Court overturned FDA’s proposed rules. This same proven public health servant is now telling us why we have an epidemic of obesity in the USA and what we can do about it.

Some observations about the book that struck me:

- Kessler studiously avoids characterizing over-eating as an addiction, creating his own term of ‘conditioned hypereating’. This is so consistent in the book that I must conclude he decided from the outset to avoid addiction terminology. Yet he gives the best, most comprehensive description of the addictive process, from the physiological to the emotional dimensions, that I have ever read, framing it as the bodies drive for ‘reward’. He makes passing reference to 12-step programs, but I don’t recall hearing any reference to Overeaters Anonymous (OA), the one 12-step program that focuses directly on this issue.

- He stops short of attacking the food industry for its manipulation of food with salt, sugar and fat, to make food more irresistable. At one point he quotes a food industry executive as saying it was the success of their business model to increase sales and profit, which is part of the problem. The people who make processed foods simply want us to buy and eat more of it, in particlar eat more of their brand and not another. That said, Kessler suggests that something has to be done, including possible regulation of the industry (eg, a calorie content statement for every dish served in a restaurant). From a public policy perspective, the health consequences of obesity are devastating and cannot be ignored. If we think our healthcare system is broken now, wait 20 years and see the overload of our system with generations of obese families and children. It seems the food industry cannot escape their role in unwittingly creating their part of this problem.

- Finally, in the ‘Afterword’, Kessler describes his own struggle with food and dieting, owning ‘a suit in every size’. This human aspect of the story is a balance to the compelling, but sometimes difficult, scientific data he covers earlier in the book.

On a technical note: the audio book was one of the best I’ve every listened to. It is divided into 40+ short chapters which keep the information in ‘bite-size’ chunks. The logic and organization of the material was fine, and the reader very clear and easy to understand.

5 Stars Devoured it in 3 days
Terrific read. Moves like a juicy novel. Fabulous insight into the mindset of Big Food Producers, food marketing, and human response. True Confession: armed with all that knowledge and solid rules, on my first trip to the grocery store after finishing the book I brought home fruits, veggies…and a slice of carrot cake. The cover photo was SUCH a powerful cue!

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