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1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 long-awaited Nov 20, 2009
For many years I have looked for a book like this that would explain why even a little of certain foods flicks a switch in my mind so that I can then only think of eating more sweets and cannot settle to anything else. I have read the explanations about neurotransmitters over until I have them clear in my mind and it is really helping when the craving comes up to think about what is going on in my brain and to reassure myself that I can wait it out. The information about the restaurant and processed food industry didn't interest or shock me so much, but the section on recovery, while short, is very clear and to the point and includes a number of really helpful strategies. Genuinely a lifesaver for those who need it and can internalize the message.
0 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 Fascinating, perhaps not very Helpful Nov 19, 2009
David Kessler has been a hero of American medicine. As director of the Food and Drug Administration, he helped wean much of the country off tobacco. He sped up the process for approving or rejecting new drugs and helped get the "Nutrition Facts" labels on all packaged food.
All this time, he was struggling with weight issues and learning as much as he could about why people overeat. The End of Overeating is the result. Kessler explains why food has become so hard to resist. He describes what is happening in our brains because of the food industry's products and marketing. And he presents a self-help program that he claims will help people stop overeating. The explaining and describing are fascinating. The self-help program seems worse than useless.
First the good stuff. Kessler's descriptions of how American restaurant food and processed food has been layered and re-layered with fats and sugars are vivid and attractive. It's like watching the Food Network show, Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. On that show, and in the pages of this book, you will see chefs' marinating, frying, coating with sweet sauces, breading, frying again, and topping with cheese.
Kessler explains how these foods affect us psychologically and physically. They make us crave them by appealing to all our senses and to our memories and emotions. After reading these chapters, I really wanted to go out and start eating at T.G.I.Friday or Chili's. But then I remembered that I have eaten at places like that, and it's not as much fun as it sounds.
After we give in to these pitches a few times, the overeating becomes a habit. Kessler calls it "conditioned overeating." It becomes automatic to grab that high-fat, high-sugar food. These habits are very hard to change.
Up to this point, I was onboard with Kessler. Except not completely - I kept wondering, "What's wrong about this, really? The food industry is bringing people pleasure and feeding them affordably. Is that so bad? Is it really helpful to obsess about what we do and don't eat?"
These questions seem relevant when you get to the last part, the "Food Rehab" and "End of Overeating" sections. Kessler's plan for overeating basically comes down to "Just Say No." He says that we need to put our thinking brains (our "prefrontal cortex") in charge of our habit and emotion driven brains. We can do this, he says, by setting up clear rules for ourselves about what we will and won't do. These rules have to be simple. You don't want to have to think about them, because when the environmental or emotional triggers hit you, you have only a moment to react. If you start thinking about it, you will wind up eating that food.
So a rule should be something like "I don't eat this food ever," or "I won't go to parties or restaurants where they serve food I can't resist." He says that you might be able to relax the rules later, but first you have to unlearn the bad food habits. This might require a near-obsessive focus on staying away from trigger situations and foods.
I don't think this can work. In my work with people with diabetes and other chronic conditions, I have learned how hard it is for people to change behavior. I explained the elements of behavior change in my books The Art of Getting Well and Diabetes: Sugar-coated Crisis, both available on Amazon. Kessler says that willpower doesn't work, but his program comes down to pure will power. As I explain in my books, nearly everyone will relapse on a program like that.
Kessler tells many heart-tugging stories of people struggling with food. "Should I eat this... I really want it, but it's bad for me...I will... I won't... I feel like such a bad person when I eat these foods." It's the feeling out of control, more than the supposed health effects that seem to be making people crazy. The health effects of overeating have been greatly exaggerated. You can read more about this in Linda Bacon's book Health at Every Size.
Bacon's program is the opposite of Kessler's. She teaches paying attention to our bodies. Learn to feel our hunger, feel what we want and when we are full, and eat accordingly. Kessler says modern "hyperpalatable" foods short-circuit those natural systems. He says we have to plan with our thinking brains exactly what and how much to eat, and stick to the plan no matter what. Otherwise, conditioned overeating will take over.
I think Bacon's plan is much more likely to heal. As I say in Art of Getting Well, we have to slow down and learn to listen to our bodies. We might need to let go of some other demands, so we can find time to take care of ourselves. We need to find sources of pleasure that are nourishing to us, before we throw away the pleasures we have. Kessler appears to recognize some of this. He cautions against feeling deprived. He says feeling deprived is why diets don't work, but his program ensures a sense of deprivation.
Kessler does say we need to get support to make changes, but doesn't say how we can find support. I do cover this in my books and at my web site wwwdotdavidsperorndotcom.
What if we stopped looking at eating as a moral question and stopped seeing weight as a judgment on our worth as human beings? What if we could relax and pay attention to our food and to our bodies? Given the modern industrial food environment, we might still overeat. But the more we tune into our bodies, the more we'll be able to eat appropriately. And we can still enjoy food and enjoy life.
I recommend this book as an enjoyable read on modern American food and on the psychology of food habits. I don't recommend it as a guide to dealing with overeating.
The Art of Getting Well: Maximizing Health and Well-being When You Have a Chronic IllnessDiabetes: Sugar-Coated Crisis: Who Gets it, Who Profits and How to Stop it
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Important read for those of us stuck in fat/diet cycles.. Nov 18, 2009
What an important book!! After 30 years stuck in gain/loss cycles, this book really helped explain what I was fighting. Very easy to read, well written. This book goes hand in hand the Glycemic Index authors. Buy and read this book! Share it with friends. You will never think about restaurants in the same way again. The author highlights the role of hyperpalatability (caused by the combination of fat, sugar, and salt) in overeating.
Enjoy! Learn! Win!
 why we overeat, and what to do about it Nov 16, 2009
Pediatrician David Kessler set out to understand what makes us overeat. He lays out the research to date about eating and overeating. He talks about what makes food palatable: salt, sugar, and fat. Not only is his discussion of the science easy to understand, it's also instantly recognisable. Then he turns his attention to the food industry, which has taken an intuitive understanding that salt, sugar, and fat make for more palatable food, and have spent billions of dollars making food that has high quantities of these three substances to sell more of it to us. After understanding what the food industry is selling us, he turns his attention to what makes us overeat. Finally, he lays out specific guidelines for ending overeating. While the book got repetitive at times, I found it to be a well-written, insightful, and useful.
0 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Thesis needs to be heard but book is painfully repetitive Nov 11, 2009
I really wish I could recommend this book but because of the repetitiveness of the book I cannot. The main thesis is one people need to hear but it needs to be stated much more tersely. However, the research section, which follows the last chapter, is fantastic and gives the thesis great credibility and could be the best part of the book.
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