|
Provocative
book explores food addictions
July 15, 2009
Suzanne Havala Hobbs
The
next time you kick yourself for eating a cinnamon roll the
size of Alaska, ponder this: Maybe you did it because you’ve
been programmed to.
Is your brain controlled by food industry wizards?
It’s not such a far-fetched idea.
In his new book, “The End of Overeating: Taking Control
of the Insatiable American Appetite,” David Kessler
explains how the food industry manipulates fat, sugar and
salt in processed foods to make them irresistible.
These three ingredients, Kessler argues, cause changes in
the brain that stimulate us to crave more. That craving can
be satisfied almost anywhere, anytime at fast food and chain
restaurants or in your own home.
It’s one of the reasons many people are losing their
battles to lose weight. By addressing the obesity pandemic,
Kessler joins other public health professionals who have singled
out junk food and our toxic food environment as a critical
priority for action.
Kessler has a track record of taking on big public health
challenges.
He was commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration from
1990 to 1997. A pediatrician, he is well-known for his work
at FDA to restyle the nutrient facts label on food packages
and to increase federal regulation of tobacco.
He can draw on insights from both experiences as he describes
the goals and challenges of food production and marketing.
In his book, Kessler cites research demonstrating how processed
foods – layered in strategic levels of fat, salt and
sugar – have been carefully formulated for maximum appeal.
These foods cause a physiological effect on the brain that
elevates mood. Eating even a little reinforces the desire
to eat more.
It explains, says Kessler, why you truly can’t eat only
one potato chip.
Couple food engineering with other powerful environmental
stimuli such as food advertising and easy access to inexpensive
foods, and even strong-willed people find it hard to stick
to a healthy diet.
What makes the situation worse is that high levels of fat,
salt and sugar in processed foods are often invisible to consumers,
even when foods are blanketed in the stuff. Take the Bloomin’
Onions at Outback Steakhouse, for example.
The onion has a lot of surface area, battered and fried, it
absorbs large amounts of fat. Add the sauce, and “their
flavor comes from salt on sugar on fat,” says Kessler.
Then there are the Buffalo Blasts at the Cheesecake Factory.
Don’t let the mention of chicken breasts and celery
sticks fool you. They also contain cheese and spicy buffalo
sauce, stuffed into a spiced wrapper and fried until crisp,
and blue cheese dressing.
“Chicken breast allows us to suspend our guilt because
it suggests a low-fat dish, and the celery sticks also hint
at something healthy,” writes Kessler.
He then describes that the cheese layer is 50 percent fat
and carries a load of salt. The sauce adds a layer of sugar.
It’s all inside a dough wrapper, making a “fat
bomb,” as one food industry consultant called it.
How can you shield yourself from fat bombs and other nutritional
attacks?
Kessler recommends checking yourself into what he calls “Food
Rehab.”
He offers substantial advice on how to live more defensively
in a culture of overeating, including how to be more conscious
of your food choices and how to avoid cues that trigger each
of us to eat junk.
He also advocates using public policy to fight back.
Like regulations on tobacco, Kessler advocates forcing restaurants
to list the calorie content of foods on menus, funding public
education campaigns to make people aware of the dangers from
“big food,” and putting controls on food marketing
that conditions people to overeat fat-, sugar- and salt-laden
foods.
Our most powerful weapon in the struggle with bad foods is
knowledge. Arm yourself.
Suzanne
Havala Hobbs is a licensed, registered dietitian and clinical
associate professor in the Department of Health Policy and
Management and the Department of Nutrition in the UNC Gillings
School of Global Public Health. Send questions and comments
to suzanne@onthetable.net.
|
