The end of overeating, by David Kessler

[iamom]

My mind is currently being blown by this book. It concerns the science of human appetite and the biological reasons why we overeat. I'm only at the end of Ch 1, but the way he describes how the trifecta of fat, sugar and salt screw up our brain's reward mechanisms and make us crave those foods, then overindulge in them once we get them is fascinating. He also describes how the first epidemiological studies in the early 90s first identified that obesity rates were climbing, and what a huge deal it was to confirm that fact scientifically because humans have basically had stable weights for thousands of years. What began in the 70s and 80s with the burgeoning of commercial fast food and the corporate processed food supply chain appear to have led directly to our currently skyrocketing obesity rates.

In a Food, Inc. kind of way, the author also describes a meeting with a food industry insider who admitted off the record that commercial food scientists make specific, targeted efforts at creating the most perfect mix of fat, sugar and salt that seems to make people become addicted to the stuff. I find this terribly enlightening and I look forward to the dietary recommendations the author lays out later in the book. I suspect that they'll be common sense, like Michael Pollan's edict, eat food, not too much, mostly plants, but there's something very compelling and reasonable about the way Kessler writes about this topic that might resonate more strongly with me.

He's also a former fatty, which makes his message ring that much truer.