Welcome to the continuing diary series "Let's Read a WHEE Book Together!" This week, we're concluding David Kessler's The End of Overeating. If you're just discovering this diary series, you will find links to the previous installments at the bottom of this diary.
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The End of Overeating, by David Kessler, M.D.
A Final Word
And so Kessler, and we readers, come to The End of The End of Overeating. Kessler has laid out his view of the problem and its cause (Part One: Sugar, Fat, and Salt), visited some of the players (Part Two: The Food Industry), focused on the details of the problem (Part Three: Conditioned Hypereating Emerges), introduced a way out (Part Four: The Theory of Treatment), followed down the way out (Part Five: Food Rehab), and took a last look back at the conflict (Part Six: The End of Overeating). Now, at the end of the book, he gives the reader a very brief glimpse at his own relationship toward food.
Kessler opens by noting that he counts himself as an overeater, someone who finds it hard to resist the pull of food. He's gained and lost weight more than once. And for Kessler, food is almost unique in its pull:
There is almost nothing else in my life that I do on impulse, without first giving it a great deal of thought.
After this revealing personal disclosure, he goes on to refer back to the addicting properties of pleasurable stimuli, such as alcohol, drugs, gambling, and sex as well as food. According to Kessler, these addicting properties are factors not only in full-blown addiction, but in our normal responses to these stimuli. Whether we're engaging in "emotional eating" to relieve anxiety, or enjoying the pleasures of a gourmet meal, our relief or enjoyment is an unconscious response to the stimuli.
Religious leaders and philosophers have long viewed "pleasures of the flesh" with suspicion at best, and there is a long history of religious rules about food as well as sex, drugs, and gambling. Kessler refers directly to this history, noting that religious leaders like Paul and the Buddha have pointed to these pleasures as the reason we lose control over our thoughts and actions. He also points to psychology's studies of pleasurable stimuli, from pioneers like Freud and Jung to moderns such as Assagioli. The modern thinkers he chooses seem to regard pleasure with as much suspicion as Paul or Augustine.
Of course, where there is temptation, there are tempters. For Kessler, the tempters are the scientists and marketers of the food industry, and he mentions them one last time. However, he is not a religious leader, but a medical doctor, and his recent work has been in public health. For him, overeating is at the end a public health problem, not a religious one:
The sooner we create and implement a framework that promotes prevention and treatment strategies that work, the sooner we will regain control over our minds and bodies.
And then things can being to change.
Previous chapters from The End of Overeating:
Part 6: The End of Overeating
Chapter 48: Fighting Back (reviewed by Clio2)
Chapter 47: Industry Cracks the Code (reviewed by me)
Chapter 46: "Our Success Is the Problem" (reviewed by Clio2)
Part 5: Food Rehab
Chapter 45: Making the Critical Perceptual Shift (reviewed by me)
Chapter 44: Avoiding Traps: On Obsession and Release (reviewed by Clio2)
Chapter 43: Eating Is Personal (reviewed by me)
Chapter 42: Letting Go of the Past (reviewed by Clio2)
Chapter 41: Planned Eating (reviewed by me)
Chapter 40: The Treatment Framework (reviewed by Clio2)
Part 4: The Theory of Treatment
Chapter 39: Emotional Learning (reviewed by me)
Chapter 38: Rules of Disengagement (reviewed by Clio2)
Chapter 37: Reversing the Habit (reviewed by me)
Chapter 36: Invitations to the Brain (reviewed by Clio2)
Part 3: Conditioned Hypereating Emerges
Chapter 35: The Culture of Overeating (reviewed by me)
Chapter 34: Warning Signs in Children (reviewed by Clio2)
Chapter 33: Nature or Nurture? (reviewed by me)
Chapter 32: Tracing the Roots of Conditioned Hypereating (reviewed by Clio2)
Chapter 31: Conditioned Hypereating Emerges (reviewed by me)
Chapter 29 (part 2 - emotional eating) (reviewed by me)
Chapter 30: How We Become Trapped (reviewed by Clio2)
Chapter 29 (part 1): Why We Don't Just Say No (reviewed by me)
Chapter 28: What Weight-Loss Drugs Can Teach Us (reviewed by Clio2)
Chapter 27: Overeating Becomes More Dangerous (reviewed by me)
Part 2: The Food Industry
Chapter 26: Purple Cows (reviewed by Clio2)
Chapter 25: The Science of Selling (reviewed by me)
Chapter 24: Optimize It! (reviewed by Clio2)
Chapter 23: Nothing Is Real (reviewed by me)
Chapter 22: The World's Cuisine Becomes Americanized (reviewed by Clio2)
Chapter 21: The Ladder of Irresistibility (reviewed by me)
Chapter 20: What Consumers Don't Know (reviewed by Clio2)
Chapter 19: Giving Them What They Like (reviewed by me)
Chapter 18: No Satisfaction (reviewed by Clio2)
Chapter 17: The Era of the Monster Thickburger (reviewed by me)
Chapter 16: That's Entertainment (reviewed by Clio2)
Chapter 15: Cinnabon: A Lesson in Irresistibility (reviewed by me)
Chapter 14: A Visit to Chili's (reviewed by Clio2)
Part 1: Sugar, Fat, and Salt
Chapter 13: Eating Behavior Becomes a Habit (reviewed by me)
Chapter 12: Highly Rewarding Foods Rewire the Brain (reviewed by Clio2)
Chapter 11: Emotions Make Food Memorable (reviewed by me)
Chapter 10: Cues Activate Brain Circuits That Guide Behavior (reviewed by Clio2)
Chapter 9: Rewarding Foods Become Hot Stimuli (reviewed by me)
Chapter 8: We Are Wired to Focus Attention on the Most Salient Stimuli (reviewed by Clio2)
Chapter 7: Amping Up the Neurons (reviewed by me)
Chapter 6: Sugar, Fat and Salt Are Reinforcing (reviewed by Clio2)
Chapter 5: Pushing Up Our Settling Points (reviewed by me)
Chapter 4: The Business of Food: Creating Highly Rewarding Stimuli (reviewed by Clio2)
Chapter 3: Sugar, Fat, and Salt Make Us Eat More Sugar, Fat, and Salt (reviewed by me)
Chapter 2: Overriding the Wisdom of the Body (reviewed by Clio2)
Chapter 1: Something Changed . . . America Gains Weight (reviewed by me)
Introduction (reviewed by me)
Scheduled WHEE diaries
Feb 14-Valentine's Issues
Sun AM - louisev
Sun PM - ???
Feb 15
Mon AM - NC Dem
Mon PM - ???
Feb. 16
Tues AM - ???
Tues PM - ???
Feb. 17
Weds AM - ???
Weds PM - Edward Spurlock (Kolata, Ch. 2)
Feb. 18
Thurs AM - 2liberal
Thurs PM - ???
Feb. 19
Fri AM - ???
Fri PM - Wee Mama (weekly diary)
Feb. 20
Sat AM - ???
Sat PM - Edward Spurlock (Wansink, Introduction)