The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The former commissioner of the FDA exposes how the food industry manufactured a nationwide health crisis and offers research-based solutions for taking back control of our diets. “Fascinating.”—The New York Times “Groundbreaking.”—USA Today “Disturbing, thought-provoking, and important.”—Anthony Bourdain Most of us know what it feels like to fall under the spell of food, but it’s harder to understand why we can’t seem to stop eating—even when we want to. So why do we continue to reach for food? Dr. David A. Kessler, the dynamic and controversial former FDA commissioner known for his crusade against the tobacco industry, is taking on another business that’s making America sick: the food industry. Nearly 75 percent of American adults are clinically overweight or obese, triple the amount from only sixty years ago. But why? In The End of Overeating, Dr. Kessler shows us how our brain chemistry has been hijacked by the foods we most love to eat: those containing stimulating combinations of fat, sugar, 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. Drawing from the latest brain science as well as interviews with top physicians and food industry insiders, The End of Overeating exposes the food industry’s aggressive marketing tactics and reveals shocking facts about how we lost control over food—and what we can do to get it back.

About the Author :
DAVID A. KESSLER, MD, served as commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration under presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. He is a pediatrician and has been the dean of the medical schools at Yale and the University of California, San Francisco. A graduate of Amherst College, the University of Chicago Law School, and Harvard Medical School, Dr. Kessler is the father of two and lives with his wife in California.

Review :
“Dr. David Kessler has written a fascinating account of the science of human appetite, as well as its exploitation by the food industry. The End of Overeating is an invaluable contribution to the national conversation about the catastrophe that is the modern American diet.”—Michael Pollan, author of How to Change Your Mind “David Kessler’s fascinating book is essential for anyone interested in learning more about how corporate greed and human psychology have created a national health crisis.”—Alice Waters, chef and owner of Chez Panisse “Disturbing, thought-provoking, and important.”—Anthony Bourdain, author of Kitchen Confidential “Fascinating . . . an exploration of us . . . we begin to think differently about food and take back control of our eating habits.”—The New York Times “Both a thinking person’s diet book and an investigation into an industry that wants us to eat more.”—Ellen Goodman, The Boston Globe “In clear and simple prose, [Dr. Kessler] shows how the modern food industry has invented ‘hyperpalatable’ foods.”—Financial Times “A wide-ranging look at eating habits [that] addresses America’s ever-increasing waistlines.”—The Wall Street Journal “Groundbreaking”—USA Today “In perversely fascinating detail, Kessler . . . reveals how industrial chefs engineered . . . ‘hyperpalatable’ concoctions undreamed of in any traditional cuisine.”—The New York Times Book Review “[The End of Overeating] is like a fun-house journey through the food industry.”—Michele Norris, former host of NPR’s All Things Considered “In The End of Overeating, Dr. Kessler explains how humans, much like Pavlov’s dogs, become hardwired to anticipate foods with fat, sugar, and salt.”—HuffPost “Kessler was on a mission to understand a problem that has vexed him since childhood: why he can’t resist certain foods. His resulting theory . . . is startling.”—The Washington Post “Does the world really need yet another book about how to lose weight? It does, if that book happens to be written by a former commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration . . . This is no ordinary diet book.”—New Scientist “If Kessler’s encouraging words don’t prod Americans into new habits, the shock therapy of learning what we’re really consuming likely will.”—New York Post “We’re up against forces—highly addictive foods, neurological drives, and a savvy food industry—that dwarf our resolve. It’s like fighting a 21st-century war with sticks and rocks, hoping we can somehow will ourselves to victory.”—The Washington Times “Kessler’s message is important: The problem is not only the behavior of profit-driven food companies, but also the daily choices that each one of us makes.”—Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation “A compelling book about overeating and the obesity pandemic. Dr. Kessler thoroughly examines the nature of our relationship with food and why it is critical to understand and modify our behavior to reverse this global threat to health and well-being.”—David Satcher, former Surgeon General and director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention