The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite
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Why Diets Don't Work
How many diets have you tried in the past five years? Two? Five? Fifteen?
If you've tried to lose weight by dieting you already know that 'diet' is just code for 'ritual self-abuse involving food deprivation'.
Diets don't work.
More to the point, any diet works for awhile, but the minute the desired weight loss is achieved, nine out of ten people gain every drop of that weight back, plus a few extra pounds as protection for the next round of self-abuse.
David Kessler, former FDA commissioner under Bush and Clinton, doesn't think much of diets. In his new book, The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite, Kessler talks about something he calls conditioned overeating, and explains in detail exactly why diets don't work and how, over the past 30 years or so, the food industry has created killer foods, killer portions, and killer ad campaigns that make food seem like the ultimate reward. The reasons are neurological and and have been extensively studied, and yet, until now, no one has really laid them all out in a way the average person can understand.
Kessler doesn't blame the food industry for the obesity epidemic in America. This is not an expose of corporate evil. Instead Kessler focuses on the unhealthy relationship that Americans have developed with food as an unwitting side effect of successful marketing. In other words, the food industry is in the business of selling food, and creating food that sells has had the unfortunate side effect of changing our relationship with food and harming our health.
The End of Overeating is an easy read. The book is broken up into six short sections. Sections One through Three explain why people crave sugar, salt, and fat, and how the food industry naturally evolved to the point where it puts these three ingredients in everything as a way to keep customers coming back. Some of the information in these sections is shocking. When I say sugar, salt, and fat are in everything, I do mean everything.
Kessler goes on to explain the psychological and biochemical reasons we get addicted to foods rich in salt, sugar, and fat; a physiological process that traps people in a cycle he calls hyper-eating.
Restaurants and food manufacturers naturally strive to kick off this hyper-eating cycle because it's good for business. It's not so much intentionally evil as it is capitalism in action. You want to make what sells, not what is nutritious, because you're not in the business of public service, you're in the business of business for profit. The lack of polemic in this approach is refreshing. Kessler isn't blaming anyone, he's just saying, "Here's the science behind what has happened, and here's the reasons why it has been so successful and yet so bad for us."
Sections Four through Six explain why diets don't work, (it's similar to why 'will power' doesn't work for alcoholics), and how to get off the bad food merry-go-round through re-education, reprogramming, learning your triggers, and structuring your meals around healthy foods.
Kessler doesn't offer any magic bullets, but he does effectively outline what a cycle of craving is biochemically speaking, and why failed dieters aren't 'weak' or gluttonous, they're simply exhibiting a conditioned response that would be the same in any mammal put on the same cycle. The trick is to get off treadmill, not on it; although he does include exercise as a good way of managing appetite and shifting cravings to nutritious foods instead of toxic ones.
This is a powerful bit of information, because it suggests that getting off the treadmill is quite possible, but it doesn't offer any of the hoopla or hype of a diet book. No testimonials, no 'I lost 100 pounds in two months and kept it off!' No assurances that the weight will fall off easily.
Instead, Kessler promises that putting food in its proper place will be neither easy nor fast but that it can be done. Structured eating (planning what you eat and when) and reprogramming yourself neurologically so that you don't see 'reward' foods as good for you, are two basic tools. He also talks about recognizing and learning to avoid situations ('triggers') that make you want a sugar/salt/fat food really, really bad. Again, the parallel to alcoholism is invoked: The trick is to never take that first drink.
As an example of successful reprogramming he talks about vegetarians who, after first swearing off meat, sometimes crave what they've given up. Over time, most vegetarians lose these cravings and learn to be repulsed by the very idea of eating flesh. Such people have successfully 're-educated' their appetites, and Kessler believes this is possible with food in general, though it is neither fast nor final.
So can you get to the point where you don't crave a chocolate chip cookie?
Get real! Of course not. Unlike alcohol, you can't give up food altogether. You do have to eat. Sometimes, you will still crave a cookie. You're human after all. You live amongst cookies, and they are incredibly deliciously available.
But you can get to the point where you don't crave a cookie (or twelve) every day. You can stop using food as a reward, get off the marketing merry-go-round, and learn to nourish your body instead of poison it.
Now that's a message we don't hear enough:
Diets don't work. Food is good for you. You can take responsibility and get your health and your life back.
It's not easy, but it is worth it.
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Comments
Hi Nancy--That is good advice! So simple too. Thanks for stopping by. :)
Sounds like someone's finally written a sensible book on the matter. One of the biggest triggers to overeating is television. The sheer number of food commercials is enough to stimulate anyone to be hungry even when they're for food you don't want -- you think of food.
Very informative article, Pam. Will check the book out as I enjoy these topics and want to make changes. I am reading a book on compulsions, and the need to overeat, over indulge in alcohol, drugs, gambling, etc are methods used to "control" our feelings, our world... everything the author is saying makes sense to me. Maybe when I finish reading the book, I will write a hub about it.
Robert--It's so true. It seems like the ads are for food or drugs, and the line is starting to blur! I think this book is a balanced and honest look at at topic that is usually hyped to the stars. Thank you for your thoughtful comment.
VioletSun--I'm trying to make changes too. That's what attracted me to it. I've been on every diet under the sun. I'm not fat, but I could lose 15 pounds and look and feel better for it, and it's hard because I do love food, especially sweet foods. So I hoped this would help me break some of those patterns. I'll let you know how it goes. Good luck!
Very informative hub. Sounds like the book has some great advice. I'll have to check it out. Thanks for sharing.
I like this approach of raising a parallelism with alcolhism or any other addiction. If nothing else works, THAT is something that can raise one's consciousness over what to eat and how much of it. I think the diets that work are the ones where the person gets into the habit of NOT overeating. In general they are varied and any type of food can be consumed, it's just a matter of not overdoing it. I'm surprised nobody ever wrote about it before, though. Very interesting.
Hi lafenty--Thanks for your comment. I appreciate you stopping by. :)
Elena--I think nobody writes from this angle (at least not often) because the diet books sell. Nobody wants to hear it isn't easy and you have to make lifetime changes. 'Lose 10 pounds in 4 days!' sells better. Thanks for your thoughts on it.
Pam, I've often been asked for help with over-eating through hypnotherapy, but it's not an issue I've ever felt comfortable about treating. Yes, hypnosis is great for specifics like cravings for chocolate, or an addiction to Big Macs, but over all the problem remains, we all have to eat. Somehow it's simpler to 'cure' someone on a single issue than it is to make a long-term change to someone's eating habits. That's why the Paul McKenna approach tends to be more successful than stand alone dieting. We need to understand why we over-eat, and address that first.
You touch on the issue of 'rewards' on your article, and the fact that temptation is everywhere, and that just about sums the problem up in a nut-shell. From early childhood we are given such psychological prompts as 'be a good girl, and I'll get you an ice cream' or, 'eat up your vegetables and you can have some cake.' Then in adulthood is it any surprise that we equate food with reward? It's a tough cycle to break out of.
Hi Amanda--I agree. Any diet will work as long as you stay on it, but hardly anyone manages to do that because the feeling of deprivation (real or perceived) sets them up for failure from day one. I think the key really is finding out what role food plays in your life and changing that. Instead of rewarding ourselves with food we have to find some other way, but food is everywhere so it's very hard to break out of the food-as-reward habit. Thanks for providing the hypnotist side of it. I always wondered if that worked on weight loss. My sense from your answer is, not so much.
Pam, I find it works well in the short-term, but not so well long term. Of course you can always go back for more hypnosis, so it's not a definite no go. I'm sure other hypnotists reading this won't necessarily agree however, The Paul McKenna approach uses NLP exercises as well as hypnosis, and that has a greater success rate.
Thanks Amanda--I'm going to check into Paul McKenna's work then. I have used NLP successfully before. I think it's a good tool, even though it has a bit of a creepy dimensions. It is effective! :)
Yep -- I've been trying to switch from chocolate to raw green beans and carrots as snack food. It is getting easier, and I've only been doing it two weeks. When I get a bad craving, though, I drink a cup of coffee sweetened with a little succanat, natural dried sugar cane. I don't intend to give up chocolate-related foods completely, especially higher cocoa levels, but I like the idea here of not treating food as a reward, a treat -- just part of a normal, healthy diet.
Thanks for this article Pam. I've been on a diet for what feels like years now and I know the problem is salt and sugar - an addiction just like cigarettes. So is the solution willpower in the end - like a 12 step program for food? I was going to buy the book, but I think your summary is probably all that is required. Great hub, you had me glued.
I use food as comfort and reward, just like cigarettes were. But I know it's not a reward at all intelligently. I have the chemical pulls to contend with now.
Hi Teresa--Good luck on that switch! I don't think anyone should have to give up chocolate entirely, but adding raw veggies is a good idea for almost anyone. Luckily they are also delicious. :)
Jewels--I fall into comfort eating as well, and I actually think that craving sweet foods is related to alcoholism. Alcohol after all is fermented sugar--it's like sugar on steroids. In 12-step programs the idea is not to try to control and addiction through will power but to admit (Step One) that you have no control over the substance you crave and your life has become unmanageable because of that. Then you work through the other 11 steps.
There are some differences with food, since we do have to eat, but we DON'T have to eat sugar. I do well with the 'no sugar ever' approach, working it like a twelve-step program, but I'm not off it at the moment. I need to get off it. I'm getting that squashy middleaged middle and I don't like it. What has worked for me in the past is changing one habit at a time permanently. This book made the think I can do it again. :)
PS: I've referenced you again. Tell me, is the book worth getting? I've taken the link to Amazon thru your article. Just don't want to get another book if you know what I mean.
Hi Jewels--It's only worth getting if you want to know the science behind the cravings. Otherwise, it's totally pedestrian in the advice department--You know, plan your meals, identify your triggers, re-educate your tastes, then keep it up for the rest of your life.
If I were you, I'd look for it at the library. There's no magic bullet in it, but I did like his more truthful approach. The truth is lots harder though than the promises in the diet books. I've tried so many diets it was just refreshing to me to have a scientist say, Look, it's really hard and it isn't just your lack of willpower, here's why it's hard. I liked that because it rings true for me. :)
That's what I thought, thanks Pam. For me I can see the seesaw between sugar and salt and my lack of fluid intake. And I've started eating dark chocolate (70% cocoa) instead of milk chocolate and I've found the difference remarkable. So taking baby steps. Have to reduce the biscuits (cookies), that's the next thing.
An aside, I read Badcompany's hub on the rebounder and bought one - it's pretty good and a better preference for me instead of the treadmill at the gym. I don't have to walk a dog but walk daily anyway. Sit-ups next!
Sit ups! Ugh! I definitely need those. Now you've got me inspired. Thanks!
I need to get a grip on my diet again I know.
We have found that cooking from scratch does eventually help you to cut back. Not because we cook less because it is hard work, but because we produce meals with less salt and sugar than ready prepared food. Like most people we are busy and it is just so easy to pick up food that only needs to be heated! But apart from being more expensive, those lovely 'ready meals' contain more fat, salt & sugar than the do it yourself version. Also, we have found that they sometimes contain less protein, calcium, vitamins etc.
We'll have to look up Badcompany's hub on rebounders! Tricia has a rebounder in the room next to her kitchen. When she is waiting for something to cook she jumps up and down on it! Sort of burning off calories in advance.
I've learned through experience and time (and some study) that while habits can be changed, if cravings aren't addressed, they always sneek back into the picture, usually with a vengeance. So eating nutritiously will help the cravings over time, but it's a bit of a roller coaster till things balance out. Some believe sugar cravings are a lack of enough healthy fats in the diet, and once they are added in, the cravings are often reduced. However, most fear that adding fats of any kind = blimp. Adding a little is usually adding a lot.
Healthy fats (olive oil, flax oil, fish oil, etc.) are best assimilated and used in the system with proteins. Carbs and fats usually don't make a good mix, hence fatty-sugary desserts. (Dang...)
Thanks for another great article!
Hi Ethel--Me too, me too. :)
2Patricias--I agree about cooking real meals. We eat far less sugar and fat that way, and I sometimes have only vegetables for dinner and eat my main meal at noon since my partner comes home late and eats late. I cook a heavier meal for him and eat a lighter one a bit earlier.
Daniel--That's interesting about fats and sugar cravings. I find that I struggle with sugar cravings more than anything, but I also crave bitter green things, especially dark leafy greens and dark green veggies like broccolini and brussels sprouts. For me those are as much of a treat as a brownie or four. The big problem here is butter. We love it but olive oil would be better, and not much of it. I'm going to think through how to change some of that up so as to drop the butter and see if my sugar cravings don't decline. Thanks for your comments and the info!
Pam, butter isn't necessarily bad. It depends on its context. Kitten's been doing a lot of science research on this -- and she is serious about nutrition for the family. One thing she turned up that's interesting is that butter combined with refined sugars is what can really kick up cholesterol. The body needs animal fats -- so olive oil more often rather than cut butter out entirely is a good idea, but we cut out almost all refined sugar.
So we have fruit in the house all the time, not the perfect-looking supermarket fruit but the bruised fruit and cheap local fruit that's always copious. Those are the little sweet snacks that the adults have gotten used to as much as the kids -- and I think they may be related to the sweets craving. Those are crammed with vitamins and a vitamin craving can manifest as a sweets craving, or some other nutrient like potassium.
Bananas are very healthful.
Kitten also warned that changing your diet all at once is a good way to buy two or three months of intestinal misery. Add a healthy new food sparingly, a small portion once a week till you're used to that, then a little more often, till it becomes part of what you expect every day. Then add another. Otherwise your whole digestion gets thrown off with a lot of miserable results.
Which may well be part of the whole dieting-ritual-deprivation and self punishment cycle anyway, since going on the diet that sudden and drastic also means whoosh, there you go bound up painful and gassy or constant painful diarrhea and the latter will make the diet look like it worked fast because you're getting dehydrated in the process. The goal gets met and after that all the person craves is everything tasty that they've been doing without.
Including some nutrients people need like animal fat, in greater or lesser proportion in relation to the other things you're eating and your activity levels.
For comfort eating itself, it's important to know yourself and list what other things comfort you. The whole point of comfort eating is to comfort yourself when you're stressed, tired, socially pressured and attacked -- how much personal criticism do you still face every day, Pam? How normal is personal criticism in this society? How often do people say they're doing it for your own good -- and how often is your fifteen pounds the subject of it?
Find things that you genuinely like and enjoy, things that are not food and don't harm your body in other ways. Activities are good. Things that involve creating something are particularly good so that your little achievements stack up. Daily painting or drawing has been really good for me as comfort and morale, because I can manage to do it even on very bad days and the longer I do it, the more I do keep improving in how well I draw and paint.
Last year I could never have drawn a two minute gesture sketch of a moving cat. Today, I might have a shot at capturing Ari when he's in fiddle position before he's done. It's one of the things I'm working toward.
Sustained effort toward an achievement is human nature, is instinct on that same powerful level -- which may connect historically with honey. Honey used to take this grand risk of climbing trees and getting stung and going through a lot of work once in a while when you were lucky enough to find a hive. Fruit is more the everyday sweet. Refined sugars are something different and a lot of the other nutrients are taken out of it in the process.
I also think one of the hardest parts of eating well and living well for Americans is the amount of introspection needed -- the need to accept that you're not the same as everybody else. I don't think a healthful diet is the same for everybody. I think the best results come when you understand yourself and exactly what it is your cravings represent -- then meet those needs as themselves.
Finding nonfood sources of emotional comfort is important to breaking the overeating cycle because emotional comfort is a real need that never goes away. As long as we have to live in America it's going to be a constant necessity and I think even in good circumstances it's a real need -- one that if you take care of it for yourself can be done symbolically as well as by taste. I know a lot of people shift over to scents and bathing, the industries support this because it sells fancy candles and aromatherapy stuff, but you might like it. If so, it could be a cool thing to get a step more independent and start buying little bottles of essential oils to do your personal mixing.
That's also cost effective compared to most of the commercial fancy candles and aromatherapy things.
The trick is to separate what actually comforts you from what the ads are telling you comforts or treats or pleases you. Then plan it and make healthy choices among the comforts so that you do still have that emotional comfort and don't feel deprived. The emotional cycle is "sin and beat yourself up for it." So it's essential to quit depriving yourself and quit doing ritual sacrifice on the dieting thing -- and replace that with rewards that you do not hesitate to enjoy because you think of them as good things, like books or music or a smelly bath or anything that makes you feel more like a happy Pam who's in charge of her own life and doing a good job of that.
I hope this ramble helps. It almost turned into another Hub, the way some of them do. I rewrote it a couple of times to get off some tangents. Good luck on it -- take it slow and understand what your different cravings are and maybe you can actually satisfy them all without having to overdo something to the point of ruining your health.
It really helps to turn off the TV during the sorting process too, so that you're not constantly bombarded by ads telling you what you should feel and want, and only have your own real desires to look at for "what do the cravings represent?"
Gahh, sorry about double posting the long comment. My internet glitched so I couldn't rewrite it to be a new one either.
In order to eat well it takes stepping away from living American -- from a ton of other assumptions and habits including the idea that self punishment is important. That punitive aspect of the dieting is why people will actually pay money to Weight Watchers to get ritually insulted when they fall off the wagon. This always seemed creepy to me.
I got picked on enough as a kid, I should go pay for a program so I can go on getting humiliated? Not.
One of the needs that dieting-comfort foods cycle provides is social approval and social support. So in changing your life it becomes important to build strong support for what else you're doing so that you can get your daily approval from other people.
In looking at my current habits I can see that's a lot of why I keep on with Daily Art -- every time I post it I'm entering the same kind of win-win social approval contract. I connect with other people who like art, they post compliments, I post compliments on theirs when they're artists, it's all positive and it fills the loneliness.
Separating that need from the physical pleasures of different good foods will eventually lead to your body being trained to respond to its real needs. At that point the broccoli cravings are exactly as intensely enjoyable as the sweets craving and you haven't lost anything, the experience of savoring food isn't gone out of life.
I think that this is one handle on a pattern that's bigger than just food, but that's a topic for more hubs. I may have to write some.
Hi robert--Great advice all around ,thank you!
I agree about paid weight loss programs. I've been in Weight Watchers twice in my life, and while I did lose weight both times, I wasn't as wild about it as fans are. The support groups weren't for me--they felt like extended Tupperware parties more than anything--and the little 'tricks' about how to make delicious sweet desserts out of cow knuckles, saw dust, and whipped air with artificial sweetener always struck me as insane--like some kind of food fetish. The people directing the groups always felt like evangelists but I never got all the way saved.
What has worked for me is, as you say, making small changes one at a time and sticking to them--and exercise. Right now I'm not as happy with my body as I want to be, but I'm also FIFTY-SIX. I looke exactly like most of the other women in my family did at 56. Not everybody is able to hit retirement looking like Cameron Diaz or Audrey Hepburn. But we feel like we are suppoed to try. I'm not sure that's healthy. Eat well, but when it comes to body image, lighten up. That's my feeling. Easy to say, tough to do. Thanks for your thoughts!
Couldn't help but comment on what you just said about weight watchers, Pam. I have the same trouble with them...I know that a sense of community can be a good thing, but I was never one to take this direction. Mind you, I'm not big on Tupperware parties or church congregations either.
Years ago I lost weight using a book called "Think thin, Stay Thin", it was, interestingly enough, written by the psychological director of Weight Watchers at the time (in the 1970's). It worked on the principle of getting your head in the right place, and further more, changing habits slowly by examining them and changing them to how a thin person acts. There were whole chapters on the psychology of advertising and supermarket ad placements etc. The book devoted about one chapter to food choices. Your thinking was the key, and only secondary the food you put into your mouth. It sounds very similar to what you are talking about in the book in this article.
I wonder if since weight watchers is big business now, with their own food lines, if this is why you don't see this kind of lesson in their classes anymore. They are a business, and the kind of peer pressure you have in a meeting is perfect advertising, really. I must break out that book and read it again. That, along with "Influence", might be enough for me to lose some of my excess weight. Thanks for reminding me. I never would have thought of it if I hadn't seen this article!
Hi Hovalis--I will definitely look up the book you mention here. I appreciate you validating the WW experience too. I think the support fits a certain kind of woman but apparently I'm not that kind. I also found the public weigh-ins to be humiliating, even though no on can really see the scale except the woman at the desk. I felt like, while the program worked, like any other diet it fostered an unhealthy obsession with food. A food obsession is a food obsession, even if you do exchange healthy foods for bad. As you say, it's what's going on between our ears that matters, not what's going into our mouths. Thank you for your perceptions and the book recommendation. I appreciate both. :)
Nancy's Niche says:
5 months ago
Wonderful article as usual...My grandmother was a nurse so we ate well and very little junk food...Her rule was, you can eat anything you want just don't over do it...Good advice don't you think?