Why we like to eat what we like to eat (Article)

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/23/health/23well.html?_r=1 & em= & pagewanted=print

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June 23, 2009

How the Food Makers Captured Our Brains By

TARA PARKER-POPE

As head of the

Food and Drug Administration, Dr.

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.

In an experiment of one, Dr. Kessler tested his willpower by buying two

gooey chocolate chip cookies that he didn’t plan to eat. At home, he

found himself staring at the cookies, and even distracted by memories of

the chocolate chunks and doughy peaks as he left the room. He left the

house, and the cookies remained uneaten. Feeling triumphant, he stopped

for coffee, saw cookies on the counter and gobbled one down.

“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).

During his time at the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Kessler

maintained a high profile, streamlining the agency, pushing for faster

approval of drugs and overseeing the creation of the standardized

nutrition label on food packaging. But Dr. Kessler is perhaps best

known for his efforts to investigate and regulate the tobacco industry,

and his accusation that cigarette makers intentionally manipulated

nicotine content to make their products more addictive.

In “The End of Overeating,” Dr. Kessler finds some similarities in the

food industry, which has combined and created foods in a way that taps

into our brain circuitry and stimulates our desire for more.

When it comes to stimulating our brains, Dr. Kessler noted, individual

ingredients aren’t particularly potent. But by combining fats, sugar and

salt in innumerable ways, food makers have essentially tapped into the

brain’s reward system, creating a feedback loop that stimulates our

desire to eat and leaves us wanting more and more even when we’re

full.

Dr. Kessler isn’t convinced that food makers fully understand the

neuroscience of the forces they have unleashed, but food companies

certainly understand human behavior, taste preferences and desire. In

fact, he offers descriptions of how restaurants and food makers

manipulate ingredients to reach the aptly named “bliss point.” Foods that

contain too little or too much sugar, fat or salt are either bland or

overwhelming. But food scientists work hard to reach the precise point at

which we derive the greatest pleasure from fat, sugar and salt.

The result is that chain restaurants like Chili’s cook up

“hyper-palatable food that requires little chewing and goes down easily,”

he notes. And Dr. Kessler reports that the Snickers bar, for instance, is

“extraordinarily well engineered.” As we chew it, the sugar dissolves,

the fat melts and the caramel traps the peanuts so the entire combination

of flavors is blissfully experienced in the mouth at the same time.

Foods rich in sugar and fat are relatively recent arrivals on the food

landscape, Dr. Kessler noted. But today, foods are more than just a

combination of ingredients. They are highly complex creations, loaded up

with layer upon layer of stimulating tastes that result in a multisensory

experience for the brain. Food companies “design food for

irresistibility,” Dr. Kessler noted. “It’s been part of their business

plans.”

But this book is less an exposé about the food industry and more an

exploration of us. “My real goal is, How do you explain to people what’s

going on with them?” Dr. Kessler said. “Nobody has ever explained to

people how their brains have been captured.”

The book, a New York Times best seller, includes Dr. Kessler’s own candid

admission that he struggles with overeating.

“I wouldn’t have been as interested in the question of why we can’t

resist food if I didn’t have it myself,” he said. “I gained and lost my

body weight several times over. I have suits in every size.”

This is not a diet book, but Dr. Kessler devotes a sizable section to

“food rehab,” offering practical advice for using the science of

overeating to our advantage, so that we begin to think differently about

food and take back control of our eating habits.

One of his main messages is that overeating is not due to an absence of

willpower, but a biological challenge made more difficult by the

overstimulating food environment that surrounds us. “Conditioned

hypereating” is a chronic problem that is made worse by dieting and needs

to be managed rather than cured, he said. And while lapses are

inevitable, Dr. Kessler outlines several strategies that address the

behavioral, cognitive and nutritional factors that fuel

overeating.

Planned and structured eating and understanding your personal food

triggers are essential. In addition, educating yourself about food can

help alter your perceptions about what types of food are desirable. Just

as many of us now find

cigarettes repulsive, Dr. Kessler argues that we can also undergo

similar “perceptual shifts” about large portion sizes and processed

foods. For instance, he notes that when people who once loved to eat

steak become

vegetarians, they typically begin to view animal protein as

disgusting.

The advice is certainly not a quick fix or a guarantee, but Dr. Kessler

said that educating himself in the course of writing the book had helped

him gain control over his eating.

“For the first time in my life, I can keep my weight relatively stable,”

he said. “Now, if you stress me and fatigue me and put me in an airport

and the plane is seven hours late ­ I’m still going to grab those

chocolate-covered pretzels. The old circuitry will still show its

head.”

—

Marilyn

New

Orleans, Louisiana, USA

Undiagnosed IBS since 1976, SCD since 2001

Darn Good SCD Cook

No Human Children

Shadow & Sunny Longhair Dachshund