The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The former commissioner of the FDA exposes how the food industry manufactured a nationwide health crisis and offers research-based solutions for taking back control of our diets.

“Fascinating.”—The New York Times
“Groundbreaking.”—USA Today
“Disturbing, thought-provoking, and important.”—Anthony Bourdain

Most of us know what it feels like to fall under the spell of food, but it’s harder to understand why we can’t seem to stop eating—even when we want to. So why do we continue to reach for food?

Dr. David A. Kessler, the dynamic and controversial former FDA commissioner known for his crusade against the tobacco industry, is taking on another business that’s making America sick: the food industry. Nearly 75 percent of American adults are clinically overweight or obese, triple the amount from only sixty years ago. But why? In The End of Overeating, Dr. Kessler shows us how our brain chemistry has been hijacked by the foods we most love to eat: those containing stimulating combinations of fat, sugar, and salt. Food manufacturers create products by manipulating these ingredients to stimulate our appetites, setting in motion a cycle of desire and consumption that ends with a nation of overeaters.

Drawing from the latest brain science as well as interviews with top physicians and food industry insiders, The End of Overeating exposes the food industry’s aggressive marketing tactics and reveals shocking facts about how we lost control over food—and what we can do to get it back.

DAVID A. KESSLER, MD, served as commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration under presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. He is a pediatrician and has been the dean of the medical schools at Yale and the University of California, San Francisco. A graduate of Amherst College, the University of Chicago Law School, and Harvard Medical School, Dr. Kessler is the father of two and lives with his wife in California.