David Kessler’s “The End of Overeating” and Why Our Brains Love Junk Food

Dr. Kessler's new book explores the psychology and neurobiology of why we find processed food so irresistible.

I finally completed one task on my summer to do list.  I finished David Kessler’s new book “The End of Overeating- Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite.”

Dr. Kessler is the former commissioner of the FDA who worked on tobacco reform.  His new book takes a step away from social determinants of obesity, such as poverty, and instead examines the interplay between the food industry and human psychology.

Kessler weaves together neuropsychology, addiction studies, and tales from food industry defectors to reveal how the food industry has hijacked our appetites for profit.  Foods are crafted in a way to make them delicious yet unsatisfying- marketed to be constantly on our minds and never kept far from reach.

As a consequence we have created a culture of what Kessler terms “conditioned hypereating.”  We consume pleasurable to eat, highly palatable foods at any time of the day, irrespective of appetite, and often fueled by emotion. Short chapters packed with high quality studies, which make for an extremely convincing argument.

Highlights:

Food scientists willingly admit they manipulate the fat, sugar, and salt content in processed foods to create irresistible concoctions. In a rat study where two strains, obesity prone and obesity resistant, were given unlimited access to hyper palatable mixtures of fat, sugar, and salt.  Both strains uncontrollably gorged themselves and became obese.

Processed foods are created to be reinforcing, encouraging us to come back for more irrespective of if we’re full. A study done at UNC used a progressive ratio experiment- rats had to poke their noses in a hole an increasing number of times to get a reward of a fat/sugar mixture.  The rats maxed out at fourteen rewards, which took them over an hour, and the last reward requiring seventy-seven nose pokes.  The only other substance a rat will work that hard for is cocaine.

Emotional eating really does make you feel better. High fat/high sugar foods stimulate the release of opioids in the brain resulting in pain relief.  Rats given unrestricted access to sucrose solutions feel less pain than those given opioid like drugs. When opioid receptors in the brain are blocked rats eat significantly fewer calories.  Sucrose is a known analgesic for human newborns.

Your brain will not tire of eating the same processed snack foods. We do not become habituated to food- the hit of the feel good neurotransmitter dopamine does not decrease after repeated exposure.  Rats given high fat, high sugar chocolate drinks continued to release high levels of dopamine after each ingestion, regardless of the number of times they were exposed.  Similar responses are seen with cocaine use.

Chapter by chapter, study-by-study Kessler provides a scientific perspective on behaviors many of us find personal and embarrassing.  I now understand why I, a person who loves healthy food, find Oreos completely irresistible, will eat the whole package, and still want more.

Food companies are exploiting these behaviors to sell billions of dollars worth of food that is sickening our nation.

Every snack food and chain restaurant dish has been concocted by food scientists, enhanced with flavorings, and tested by focus groups to ensure maximum irresistibility and minimize satiety.  Conferences are held on how to optimize flavor.  Chemists devise new formulas for additives to achieve what nature cannot.  Advertisements are developed to keep food constantly on our minds.  No wonder why willpower alone is often not enough to protect ourselves.

The end result?  Items like Chili’s “Crispy Honey Chipotle Chicken Crispers” which come in at a whopping 1,930 calories per serving! Applebees will only provide nutritional information on foods “where required by law.”

Kessler pulls away the veil, moving our anger from our inability to resist such foods, and towards an industry that is profiting at our expense.

At the conclusion of the book Kessler implores the food industry to use it’s research and production capacity to make foods that satisfy us without the unnecessary calories. Readers are given some tips, many derived from addiction studies, on how to readjust our relationship with food.

I found the book to be a fascinating scientific perspective on the obesity epidemic, but written to be accessible to the average reader.  The book did drag at a few points.  Kessler sometimes provides too many details which confuse his points rather than reinforce them.  Despite these complaints, I strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning the neural roots of our love affair with processed foods.

For more information:

Interested in counting calories? Daily Plate or Everyday Health provide good resources

Links to nutritional information of major food chains listed here