Includes bibliographical references (p. 252-304) and index.
Contents:
Part I. Sugar, fat, salt : Something changed, America gained weight -- Overriding the wisdom of the body ; Sugar, fat, and salt make us eat more sugar, fat, and salt -- The business of food: creating highly rewarding stimuli -- Pushing up our settling points -- Sugar, fat, and salt are reinforcing -- Amping up the neurons -- We are wired to focus attention on the most salient stimuli -- Rewarding foods become hot stimuli -- Cues activate brain circuits that guide behavior -- Emotions make food memorable -- Rewarding foods rewire the brain -- Eating behavior becomes a habit -- Part II. The food industry : A visit to Chili's -- Cinnabon: a lesson in irresistibility -- That's entertainment -- The era of the monster thickburger -- No satisfaction -- Giving them what they like -- What consumers don't know -- The ladder of irresistibility -- The world's cuisine becomes Americanized -- Nothing is real -- Optimize it! -- The science of selling -- Purple cows -- Part III. Conditioned hypereating emerges : Overeating becomes more dangerous -- What weight-loss drugs can teach us -- Why we don't just say no -- How we become trapped -- Conditioned hypereating emerges -- Tracing the roots of conditioned hypereating -- Nature or nurture? -- Warning signs in children -- The culture of overeating -- Part IV. The theory of treatment : Invitations to the brain -- Reversing the habit -- Rules of disengagement -- Emotional learning -- Part V. Food rehab : The treatment framework -- Planned eating -- Letting go of the past -- Eating is personal -- Avoiding traps: on obsession and relapse -- Making the critical perceptual shift -- Part VI. The end of overeating : "Our success is the problem" -- Industry cracks the code -- Fighting back -- A final note.
Summary:
Most of us know what it feels like to fall under the spell of food--when a handful of chips leads to an empty bag. But it's harder to understand why we can't seem to stop eating, even when we know better. Dr. David Kessler, the dynamic former FDA commissioner who reinvented the food label and tackled the tobacco industry, now cracks the code of overeating by explaining how our bodies and minds are changed when we consume foods that contain sugar, fat, and salt. Food manufacturers create products by manipulating these ingredients to stimulate our appetites, setting in motion a cycle of desire and consumption that ends with a nation of overeaters. This book explains for the first time why it is exceptionally difficult to resist certain foods and why it's so easy to overindulge. Dr. Kessler's cutting-edge investigation offers new insights and helpful tools to help us find a solution.--From publisher description.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.