Blog 17: Summarizing and Responding to "The End of Overeating."

The article adapted from “XXXL” by Elizabeth Kolbert starts by mentioning a former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration – David A. Kessler, who states that food is being modified to make people addicted to it. To create such an addiction the food industry came up with fashion products called “eatertainment” that consists of: fat, sugar and salt. Kessler compares Cinnabons and Starbucks’s Strawberries & Crème Frappuccinios to drugs. A research on rats shows that the rat’s brain reacts to sugar and fat the same way as a drug addict reacts to cocaine.

I agree with David A. Kessler when he indicates that the processed food is being modified to make people addicted to it.

 The food industry is increasing the use of fat, salt, and sugar in food and is creating fashion products called “eatertainment”.

Food Companies add fat, salt and sugar to our food to increase people’s cravings. I guess it is obvious that if we have a an explosion of different tastes in our mouth we start to crave the product even more and we cannot seem to stop eating it (seriously like an addiction). That is exactly what Kessler calls “conditioned hypereating”. For instance, I hardly eat chips. There are so many different kinds. They vary in tastes, color and smell. I can never make up my mind, but if I do end up eating chips it’s almost always the kind called “party mix”. The name it’s self says everything. What a combination. If you’re cravings something salty you have the pretzels, something cheesy - cheetos and something sweet the sweet sunrise chips. I mean what more can a person desire from a small pack of chips?   

Besides from attacking our taste buds with mixes of fat, sugar and salt food industries are also trying to get our attention by making their products as visually desirable as possible. McDonalds is making their meals bigger and bigger and also it’s adding toys for kids in happy meals. Kinder Bueno is another company that is trying to catch kids’ attention with toys. They came up with chocolate eggs that have little toys on the inside. Parents are getting great deals – a meal and a toy. You just can’t go wrong (not!). KFC’s wings can’t look any juicier in their commercials where in reality there nothing but dry. So many times after seeing a KFC commercial on TV I ended up eating it with nothing but regret at the end, and what funny is I know I’ll still have it in the near future.

In conclusion, in my opinion the food industry is doing a very good job with getting us addicted from their products. Even though people now are able to learn how many calories they are consuming when having a burger at McDonalds they still have it. Food industries won’t stop modifying their products, if anything they will come up with different ways of doing so to make profit. It is up to people as individuals to decide whether they want to eat healthy or not.