Here's the gist:
Dr. David Kessler, 58, says that when he looks at a huge plate of French fries, he knows that if he starts eating them, he won't stop until he's wolfed them all down. Yes, even the former head of the Food and Drug Administration, who once oversaw the nation's health, struggles to eat well like the rest of us.
In his new best-selling book, "The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite," Kessler, a San Francisco Bay Area pediatrician, explains why certain foods loaded with fat, sugar and salt exert such a pull, despite our best intentions to avoid them. As he discusses the biology that leads to scarfing down a plate of fries, he delves into such puzzles as why the French fry binger is more likely to remember the pleasant stimulation of the fries' salt, fat, texture and flavor than the stomachache and self-recrimination that follow it.
The former dean of medical schools at Yale and the University of California, San Francisco, Kessler, who is also a lawyer, contends that the American food culture, including our mores about when, where and how often we eat, plays a large role in fostering what he calls "conditioned hypereating." He argues that the government, food industry and individual diner all have parts to play in combating that plate of fries. While Kessler is not offering a weight-loss solution or proposing some chimerical healthy eating plan, his book strips away the allure of some of the most appetizing and unhealthy foods. I spoke with Dr. Kessler about why so many of us can't eat just one.
I've not read the book, so I can't comment in detail on Dr. Kessler's hypotheses. However, I am fascinated by writing on both the cultural significance of food, as well as the science behind our experience of food. So, this may offer an addition to that perpetual reading list.
Here's just a bit more:
In people who have a hard time controlling their eating, their brain circuits remain elevated and activated until all the food is gone. Then the next time you get cued, you do it again. Every time you engage in this cycle you strengthen the neural circuits. The anticipation gets strengthened. It's in part because of ambivalence. Do you ever have an internal dialogue? "Boy, that would taste great. No, I shouldn't have it. I really want that. And I shouldn't do it."
"That sort of ambivalence increases the reward value of the food. It increases the anxiety, it increases the arousal, it keeps it in working memory. We're wired to focus on the most salient stimuli in our environment. For some people it could be alcohol or illegal drugs or nicotine or sex or gambling. For many of us it's food."
It's basic learning. When you get cued, the brain gets activated. There's an arousal. There's increased dopamine. That dopamine focuses your attention. It narrows your focus. Of all the stimuli in the environment, why does that chocolate-chip cookie have such power?
We're wired to focus on the most salient stimuli. What do I mean? If a bear walked in right now, you're going to stop focusing on this interview. It's part of being human. It's what's made us successful as a species. You make food hyper-palatable with fat, sugar and salt. It's very stimulating and it becomes the most salient stimuli for many people.
If anybody's read the book, I welcome your thoughts on it.
2 comments:
I have not read the book and nor am I an expert to be able to make any kind of viable statement regarding this hypothesis other than that it does sound compelling. Especially since I know a thing or two about overeating (I used to be able to eat my weight in peanuts even long after getting over my eating disorder).
what I want to comment on though is something that is at the opposite end of the spectrum of the issue: the ability to eat until you're full and not a bite more. I was always envious of my brother whose eating, even though not always healthy, was so intuitive that it made me think that the two of us belonged to a different species, let alone the same family. He only ate what he wanted when he was hungry and nothing else (even if it meant ice cream for breakfast or plain bread for lunch). Didn't matter whether his plate was half full or had only one more bite left - when he was full, he would stop eating, just like that. As someone who struggled with food for a longest time, I never though I would be able to get to that point - the best I was hoping for was to be able to get though the day a meal at a time and at peace with myself... Imagine my surprise when I discovered that during my recovery my brain had somehow miraculously rewired itself and my eating habits of the past couple of years have become nothing but a smoothly running clockwork. What I'm trying to say is that despite the neurological conditioning, despite the social and cultural aspects of food, it is possible to go beyond all that and return to what's commonly referred to as intuitive eating - an ability that we are all born with but lose it gradually as we become accustomed to social, cultural and emotional aspects of food.
However, as a side effect, the whole process has left me with a much more toned down and unsophisticated palate. Go figure.
Intuitive eating amazes me. It's like the Holy Grail!
Although I've seen some improvements in recovery, intuitive eating has not really been my thing. Perhaps it's because I wasn't much of a healthy eater pre-ED. Before anorexia, I was a chubby adolescent and adult who was sort of a low-level over-eater but with weird food preferences. My habits were nothing that would warrant a clinical diagnosis of any sort, but they weren't especially healthy. I was extremely picky about what I ate, and I tended to fixate on certain foods.
My parents can attest to the fact that as a child I would select a lunch for school days, and I would eat that exact same lunch every single day for years. For a few years, it was rice cakes with peanut butter and raisins. If anything was different, even the number of raisins on the rice cake, I would refuse to eat the whole thing. For a while, it was a particular variety of multi-grain roll with a particular variety of margarine. I wasn't trying to lose weight then, but I refused, for whatever reason, to eat anything but bread and water for lunch. As an adult, there was the Year of Whataburger Chicken Strips. It drove my ex-husband wild, but it was all I would eat for dinner night after night for months on end. Also, I would often get momentarily obsessed with something and eat stupid quantities of it. For example, I would have a craving for sweetened condensed milk . . . and I would eat three cans of it in one sitting. Or shredded coconut. I would eat a couple of bags of it. This sort of thing didn't happen very frequently, certainly not enough to qualify as clinical binge-eating disorder. I didn't purge afterwards--the thought didn't even occur to me back then. But, all that to say, I don't have very healthy pre-anorexia/bulimia instincts about food to revert to. In recovery, I've sort of been building from scratch.
I'm glad to read, Nika, that you've experienced some significant gains in this area. Hope springs eternal!
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