Dr David Aaron Kessler, pediatrician, lawyer, author, administrator and former FDA Commissioner spent seven years researching and zeroing in on why we eat the way we do.
He formed a considered opinion on the way that food manufacturers and advertisers manage to make such an impression on our brains, that it changes our brain circuitry and we develop a pattern of overeating that could begin in childhood and last throughout life.
In his book, The End of Overeating – Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite, a New York Times bestseller, he talks about how the body’s self regulating mechanisms have been short circuited by the food industry in collusion with advertisers.
It is the ever present, easy availability of unhealthy food that sets us up for a lifetime food obsession and which translates into profits for manufacturers.
Kessler recommends a perceptual shift that result in our finding new sources of reward to regain control of the way that we eat. In his book he outlines a simple “Food Rehab Program” that can help us fight back against the way that the profit motive has conditioned us.
Consider how Kentucky fried chicken and the Big Mac are considered to be American icons, so strong is the marketing of these products. So in the book Kessler identifies the cues that lead to overeating and guides us on getting the tools to control our impulses.
