On Demand
Pavlov’s Hot Dog?
Monday, April 27, 2009
Former FDA Commissioner Dr. David A. Kessler looks at the ways we’ve been conditioned to overeat unhealthy foods in his book The End of Overeating.
Event: Dr. David Kessler is speaking
Monday, April 27, at 7:00 pm
The Princeton University Club
15 West 43rd Street
More information here.
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Kessler is straddling the fence with the wishy-washy "fats and sugar, salt".
No. It is carbs.
Just read Gary Taubes' "Bad Calories, Good Calories".
500 pages of hard facts and science. The debate is over, Mr. Kessler.
PS- In my experience, once you cut way down on your carbs, you won't crave them anymore.
It is a CARB addiction.
The May 2009 issue of "Best Life" magazine has an article on p. 68 that you might be interested in:
"The War on Our Wasitlines: Inside the Wild World of Food Processing"
From the article:
"Sugar, fat, and salt make food compelling. They make it indulgent. They make it high in hedonic value, which gives us pleasure."
If you are not supposed to eat between meals, how do you teach children to eat this way when they are hungry all of the time?
i came so close to buying a pack of Orios on sale today - I looked atthe calorie content 2 cookies for 140 calories...i'm proud to report I was able to put the pack on back on the shelf - no wonder that stuff is on sale - you can't give that stuff away!
Would you say this is more a question of denial on people's part?
please address the fact that we are training our children to be over eaters from a young age while we cut out physical activity in our schools
This guy doesn't get it, and the fact that he was health commissioner during the run-up to the current crisis doesn't surprise me. When you exercise, you do more than burn calories: you build muscle mass, get your heart rate going, and in turn rev up your metabolism. Also, when you're aware of your body you're more aware of what it needs and are less apt to overeat. This guy will be fat again, sorry to say, until he educates himself and conquers his own psychological demons.
why isn't he addressing basic health/nutrition education in schools? MUST EDUCATE IN SCHOOLS.
Please address the fact that we are training our children to be over-eaters
you say the most important thing is to lay the ground work early for children. But how? How do you teach children healthy eating habits when they are bombarded by everyone else, school, friends, ect....
Just bullet points:
1. I agree. some of us eat really healthy foods, but overeat.
2. Nocotine is highly addictive. Other studies done in the late 60's early 70's (?), demonstrated that monkeys would push a bar until enar death for nicotine or cocaine. They could stop with heroine and alcohol.
3. Once nicotine is dropped, it's worth 10lbs even though you haven't increased the amount or calories of what you eat.
4. Encouragement from all sides would be helpful--and that includes eliminating judgemental attitudes about why one weighs more e.g. assuming that it's an easily controlled behavioral flaw. So I'm glad that you're discussing this.
Mercedes
The Center for Science in the Public Interest (cspinet.org) has a lot of info on this. I remember an article from years ago called "The Pressure to Eat," which among other things mentioned that restaurants had increased the portions they serve mostly because the food itself is the cheapest expense in running a restaurant.
One major thing that keeps coming up in CSPI's publication "Nutrition Action" is that the mind doesn't register calories in what we drink, only in solid food. So if you eat ice cream, you're likely to cut back on caloies in other food to "make up" for it, but if you drink a milkshake w/the same amount of calories, you're probably going to eat the same amount of calories as if you hadn't had the shake.
This is way too food focused. The weight problem is not only unhealthy food but also because people do not exercise. You can snack all day, just make sure you get out and have a run or any kind of exercise. Blaming everything on salt and sugar and fat is getting ridiculous. People just want a quick and EASY way to lose weight. They don't want to make an effort and exercise.
Dr. Kessler is dead on.
My wife and I live between NYC and France and the French have a very healthy attitude toward food.
Unfortunately it is changing there.
One question, I have traveled extensively in Asia for work.
There is a lot of fast food and snack foods there.
Why is there not an obesity problem there?
He is so right about eating anytime anywhere be socially acceptable. I find it disgusting to watch people eat in public. When did this happen?
A lot of misinformation from the guest, who is well-meaning, but doesn't have the facts.
Eating fat does NOT make you fat. Eating carbs does.
Eating between meals is fine, even HELPFUL- as long as it is eating the right thing.
Eating whenever you are hungry is fine.
I would agree that physical activity is an important factor. A visit to Amsterdam or Copenhagen can be startling. You rarely see overweight children and adults are much trimmer than their American counterparts. Of course there are many things going on, but the Danes and Dutch are more physically active than Americans.
a rather dramatic relationship here:
http://www.6footsix.com/my_weblog/2009/03/walk-and-bike-your-walk-to-a-healthier-body.html
I’m forty. Growing up in the 80’s in a blue collar town. There was just as much junk food in the stores as today and soda machines in the school cafeteria and hallways. Plus like today, school lunches where basically just bad all around. Just like now, there was a McDonalds on every corner along with all its competitors’ right next door. Parents were more “ignorant” then today on nutrition. There were also overweight people in school. But nothing as bad as what seems to be in today’s schools. Why the difference? I did have gym 3 times a week where we got exercises whether we liked it or not for 40 minutes at a time. Bring back gym!
I would love to hear you interview some of the researchers in the nutrition field. I have followed the research by Dr. Richard Feinman & Associates from Downstate Medical School (NYC) and as Andrew B. mentioned, it's not about the fat, - it's the over consumption of carbs that are having such a deleterious effect on the nation's health. After several years battling both diabetes & overweight I changed my lifestyle & have never felt better or been in better health.
I hope you'll take the opportunity to speak to the scientists & MD's with a different perspective and give your listeners an option that their doctor may not be telling them about.
Love your show - keep up the good work!
As a recovering compusive overeater (through the 12 steps of overeaters anonymous) I have accepted that my relationship with food will never be normal.
Like the goal of AA is not to help the drunk have a normal relationship with booze, the goal of OA is not to help me become a normal eater.
I’ve been in recovery for 5 years and I have a life today that is bigger than binges, purges, obsession, restriction, preoccupation and control games. OA has given me that life.
God bless overeaters anonymous, and god help anyone out there who is struggling with a food addiction, binge eating, compulsive eating, anorexia, chewing and spitting, exercise bulimia, WHATEVER you want to call it or whatever it’s been diagnosed as…god help you find peace and compassion for yourself and other people who are struggling.
I happen to have a history of addiction in my family. Many people who struggle with eating disorders do.
From my experience, over time, like the disease of alcoholism, food addiction only gets worse, never better. I tried everything to stop — diets, trainers, therapy, books, magazine articles, vegetarianism, restriction, bribes, promises, diet clubs, etc. Some of them worked, but eventually the disease crept back in and I ended up relapsing into the same insane thoughts and behaviors.
My heart goes out to everyone in the grips of this terrible illness, which I understand to be fatal and progressive. Please know that you are not alone and that there is a solution. http://www.oa.org.
In the 1950s, people drank full fat milk, ate steak and bread at meals, and considered all that to be "healthy", yet there was not an "obesity epidemic" like there is now. Just as there is more fattening food available, though, there is also increased emphasis on the ability to control one's eating. People are constantly lectured about how to eat, ad nauseum. They are told to diet, change their lifestyles or do OA, which involves complete abstinence from things such as sugar. Enough! Food is always going to taste great. Maybe if we stop all the lecturing and dieting, (and lucrative book deals) we'd also begin to curb alot of the *over*eating. If *over*eating is the culprit, then it is possible to eat french fries in moderation, as well as cake, cookies, etc. But not if we demonize such food.
Boy, what a bunch of ignorance passed off as science.
Typical medical establishment lore clad in scientific lingo.
Not a word about whole and how processing got us here in the first place.
Sad.
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