Books
Tara Parker-Pope, The New York Times Well columnist, reviews a new book by a leading public health expert, pediatrician and former head of the Food and Drug Administration.
He explains how food companies have figured out the perfect combination of ingredients—-no one of which could win us but which, together, are hard to resist.
He was helpless against the siren call of a chocolate chip cookie in a little experiment he conducted on himself. He spent the next seven years figuring out why that little cookie had so much power over him.
His theory is that these ingredient combinations create foods which tap into our brain circuitry and makes us want more, more, more.
Comfort food, anyone?
He also has advice about preventing over-eating in the book.
Dr. Kessler, who says he has suits in many sizes in his closet, says he now knows how to keep his weight stable.
As the columnist notes, this is not a “quick-fix” book but it never can be a mistake to understand the power of certain foods to grab us and not let us go.
He sees, the news story says, “some similarities” between the tobacco and food industries, in that each knows how to manipulate ingredients for maximum appeal. Normally, that is what any consumer business tries to do: find out how to maximize appeal.
When, however, the cost of that appeal poses serious health risks, it’s time to understand how they do that and how we can fight back.
“As head of the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. David A. Kessler served two presidents and battled Congress and Big Tobacco. But the Harvard-educated pediatrician discovered he was helpless against the forces of a chocolate chip cookie.
“Why does that chocolate chip cookie have such power over me?” Dr. Kessler asked in an interview. “Is it the cookie, the representation of the cookie in my brain? I spent seven years trying to figure out the answer.”
“The result of Dr. Kessler’s quest is a fascinating new book, “The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite” (Rodale).”
Source: New York Times, Well, June 23, 2009
Book: “The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite,” Rodale Press.
