My Review 5/5

For some of the population food is a means to an end. For others that don’t have eating disorders, but do suffer from emotion and reward trigger based eating, food almost controls every aspect of life. These highly emotional responses to food come from habits formed over a lifetime. Kessler also observes that caloric intake does not follow homeostasis response. This ‘set-point’ theory is why persistent pounds are the hardest to shed. Not the first 5lbs but the last 5lbs.

Fat, salt, and sugar. The trifecta of combination triggers reward centers in the mind that lead to cravings that are past the homeostasis maintaining body fat.

Part One of this book primarily focuses on the brain interaction with habit forming emotional stimulus. Previous reading on Thinking, Fast and Slow really primed this discussion on the brain. Without this background knowledge of two system brain Kessler skims over some of the more nuanced brain terminology.

Conclusion of part one: objective driven behaviors ‘I want ice cream’ will quickly become habit behaviors ‘why am I always craving ice cream when I get home from work’. To control eating you must engage the top down part of the brain. If anticipation of food causes dopamine/oxycodone response this is a habit. If hunger is the motivator it is an objective.

Part two and added to much of the literature is a study on how food scientists design their foods to hit each area of the food ‘compass’ (fat, salt, sugar). this typically means butter/oils, sugar (not refined, but molasses, brown sugar), salt. Another observation is restaurant industry tries to make food ultra-palatable. By using binding agents food is easier to chew so more can be consumed in one sitting. Advertising is based around the emotional responses to food.

One of the biggest problems in today’s society is greed of corporations and accessibility of foods. What was once an occasional treat of a 2oz chocolate muffin is now a 5oz chemical laden chocolate CHIP muffin. Great review of how our consumption habits have changed in the last 50 years.

Date Read

2016/02/22

Date Added

2016/10/11

Goodreads book information

The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite by David A. Kessler

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6127630

Bookshelves: psychology, food

Author’s Note

Initial md Generated using https://github.com/jsr6720/goodreads-csv-to-md

David A. Kessler, The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite, Blair Hardman Simon Schuster Audio 2009 (Audio CD)1

Significant revisions

tags: 2016, book, review, Kessler, psychology, food

  • Apr 22nd, 2024 Converted to jekyll markdown format and copied to personal site
  • Feb 22nd, 2016 Originally published on goodreads

EOF/Footnotes

  1. ISBN: =”074359679X” ↩