Table of Contents
Foreword xi
Introduction: You Are the Target xv
Part 1 Sugar, Fat, Salt
1 Something Changed … America Gained Weight 3
2 Overriding the Wisdom of the Body 7
3 Sugar, Fat, and Salt Make Us Eat More Sugar, Fat, and Salt 12
4 The Business of Food: Creating Highly Rewarding Stimuli 18
5 Pushing Up Our Settling Points 22
6 Sugar, Fat, and Salt Are Reinforcing 29
7 Amping Up the Neurons 35
8 We Are Wired to Focus Attention on the Most Salient Stimuli 41
9 Rewarding Foods Become Hot Stimuli 46
10 Cues Activate Brain Circuits That Guide Behavior 50
11 Emotions Make Food Memorable 55
12 Rewarding Foods Rewire the Brain 58
13 Eating Behavior Becomes a Habit 61
Part 2 The Food Industry
14 A Visit to Chili's 67
15 Cinnabon: A Lesson in Irresistibility 74
16 That's Entertainment 78
17 The Era of the Monster Thickburger 83
18 No Satisfaction 94
19 Giving Them What They Like 97
20 What Consumers Don't Know 101
21 The Ladder of Irresistibility 104
22 The World's Cuisine Becomes Americanized 111
23 Nothing Is Real 115
24 Optimize It! 120
25 The Science of Selling 125
26 Purple Cows 132
Part 3 Conditioned Hypereating Emerges
27 Overeating Becomes More Dangerous 137
28 What Weight-Loss Drugs Can Teach Us 142
29 Why We Don't Just Say No 145
30 How We Become Trapped 154
31 Conditioned Hypereating Emerges 157
32 Tracing the Roots of Conditioned Hypereating 163
33 Nature or Nurture? 166
34 Warning Signs in Children 169
35 The Culture of Overeating 173
Part 4 The Theory of Treatment
36 Invitations to the Brain 181
37 Reversing the Habit 184
38 Rules of Disengagement 190
39 Emotional Learning 196
Part 5 Food Rehab
40 The Treatment Framework 205
41 Planned Eating 209
42 Letting Go of the Past 217
43 Eating Is Personal 226
44 Avoiding Traps: On Obsession and Relapse 231
45 Making the Critical Perceptual Shift 234
Part 6 The End of Overeating
46 "Our Success Is the Problem" 239
47 Industry Cracks the Code 242
48 Fighting Back 245
A Final Word 250
Q&A with Dr. Kessler 253
Endnotes 257
List Of Author Interviews 311
Acknowledgments 319
Index 323
About The Author 330