Blog 3: The End of Overeating

In present day America the obesity rate is rising every year, it has been in a steady increase for the past forty years or so. America has earned the label 'fattest' country on the planet for this steady rise. In the book 'The End of Overeating' by David A. Kessler, MD, he goes into detail about why Americans are gaining so much weight, other than the obvious overeating. Kessler goes in depth in how the brain functions when certain foods are consumed, how psychologically connected food is with our mental functions, and as well as describing different experiments where the outcomes were valid evidences of what people and animals prefer, which are fats and sugar. Kessler provides the evidence of a study in which the reinforcing attributes of fat and sugar were tested on rats, the person who conducted these experiments was a scientist by the name of Sara Ward. In an experiment Ward demonstrated how much a rat would work for a reward by giving it a task, and it was usually a repetitive task. She was later asked,"The breaking point at which the animals will no longer work for the reward, she told me, is slightly lower than the breaking point for cocaine (Kessler, Chap.6, page.31)." This right here means that sugar and fat can be as addictive as drugs. I believe that this passage is extremely important because it does not only make a connection between food being as addictive as drugs, but it also points out that since children are exposed to all these addictive foods and such a young age it is obvious to why obesity is rising. Obesity in America is rising because we're allowing children access their own drugs, drugs that make they're health unstable, drugs that make them most likely addictive for life, and those drugs are candy, fast food, soda, anything that is loaded with sugar, loaded with fat, or even loaded with both.