Hooked

Michael Moss, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist and author of Salt Sugar Fat (2013), examines whether processed food qualifies as addictive in the same way as drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes, and how the food industry exploits the biological mechanisms that bind consumers to its products. The book is organized in two parts: "Inside Addiction" explores scientific evidence that food can be as addictive as other substances, and "Outside Addiction" details how the processed food industry has denied, deflected, and sought to profit from growing concern about food addiction.

Moss opens with the story of Jazlyn Bradley, a Brooklyn girl who began eating McDonald's regularly at age seven. By middle school, she skipped meals to binge on supersized orders, and by 16 she weighed 250 pounds and used food to cope with depression and loneliness. In 2002, attorney Samuel Hirsch recruited Bradley to join a lawsuit against McDonald's. Hirsch had previously filed on behalf of Caesar Barber, a 56-year-old maintenance supervisor ridiculed in the press; on the advice of tobacco litigator John Banzhaf, Hirsch sought younger plaintiffs less vulnerable to charges of personal irresponsibility. The refiled complaint alleged that McDonald's products were "physically or psychologically addictive." Federal Judge Robert Sweet found the addiction claim compelling but dismissed the case twice for insufficient evidence. Moss argues the lawsuit nonetheless galvanized research into food addiction and put the industry on the defensive.

In Part One, Moss traces the contested history of defining addiction through the tobacco industry. In 1994, Philip Morris CEO William Campbell testified before Congress that nicotine was not addictive. By 2000, mounting legal pressure led Philip Morris general counsel Steve Parrish to devise a strategy in which the company conceded that smoking was addictive, adopting the definition: "a repetitive behavior that some people find difficult to quit." Moss notes that this definition also applies to Philip Morris's food division, which included Kraft and brands like Oreos. Yale graduate student Ashley Gearhardt developed the Yale Food Addiction Scale, adapting the psychiatric manual's drug addiction criteria for food; 15 percent of a nationally representative sample met the criteria, most of them severely addicted. Nora Volkow, later director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, used brain scanners to show that food activates the same brain regions as cocaine. Volkow argues that food does not need to shock the brain because it is inexpensive, widely available, and safe in the short term.

Moss then examines the neuroscience of appetite. Researcher Roy Wise, working at McGill University in Montreal in the late 1960s, inserted a wire into a rat's hypothalamus, a brain region governing basic drives, and toggled hunger on and off with electrical pulses, demonstrating that appetite originates in the brain. Wise identified dopamine, a neurotransmitter, as the chemical that creates desire. Kent Berridge, at the University of Michigan, later distinguished between wanting (driven by dopamine) and liking (produced by the brain's own opioids, such as endorphins). This distinction proves critical: People with addictions often like a substance less and less but want it more and more.

Speed compounds the problem. Sugar on the tongue reaches the brain in roughly 600 milliseconds, nearly 20 times faster than cigarette smoke, because taste buds convert sensory contact into electrical signals that travel without entering the bloodstream. Philadelphia clinician Anna Rose Childress discovered that addiction cues can trigger craving even when flashed below conscious awareness. Unlike drugs, food cues are omnipresent, constantly primed to activate the brain's desire circuits.

Moss devotes a chapter to memory's role in eating habits. He profiles Paula Wolfert, a celebrated food writer whose Alzheimer's diagnosis at 74 systematically eroded her senses, illustrating that eating habits are fundamentally matters of memory. Childhood memories prove especially durable. Researcher Kathryn LaTour, of Cornell University, found that university students retrieved vivid early memories of Coca-Cola intertwined with family warmth. Brain-scan studies by Eric Stice, a researcher studying adolescent eating behavior, showed that the Coke logo alone activated desire centers in habitual teenage Coke drinkers while suppressing restraint. Research links trauma to disordered eating: Women with post-traumatic stress disorder are more than twice as likely to report food addiction symptoms, and neuroscientist George Koob argues that people with addictions seek to remove distress rather than merely chase pleasure.

The evolutionary argument forms Part One's final pillar. Walking upright triggered changes that made humans uniquely susceptible to processed food: The nose shrank, enabling flavor perception through the mouth and expanding appreciation of variety; the stomach evolved to both signal fullness and urge the brain to eat by sensing calories; and body fat became an organ that defends itself against weight loss by lowering metabolism and mimicking starvation signals. Neuroscientist Dana Small synthesizes the argument: "It's not so much that food is addictive, but rather that we by nature are drawn to eating, and the companies have changed the food."

Part Two examines how the industry exploits these realities. Moss visits a New Jersey flavor house where chemists create formulations from dozens of compounds listed under the vague label "natural and artificial flavors." The industry capitalizes on our drive for cheap food, our craving for convenience (three-fourths of grocery calories purchased are processed), and our love of variety (supermarkets grew from 6,000 items in 1980 to 33,000 today). After Bradley's lawsuit, the industry mobilized politically: The Commonsense Consumption Act, barring diet-related lawsuits, swept through 26 states. The industry also shaped the science; researcher Marion Nestle found that fewer than 10 percent of 166 industry-funded studies produced results contrary to the funder's interests.

A centerpiece of Part Two is Small's research collaboration with PepsiCo. In 2006, CEO Indra Nooyi launched the "Big Bet" to make products healthier. Using company funding, Small discovered that subjects preferred a sugary drink with 112.5 calories over the full-sugar 150-calorie version, and that the lower-calorie version boosted resting metabolism more. She hypothesized that because humans evolved drinking only water, our bodies miscalculate calories in sugary liquids. When she confirmed that solid foods produced normal results, PepsiCo halted her contract. A company executive called Small "dangerous," implying she might uncover findings detrimental to selling high-calorie beverages.

Moss traces commercial dieting from William Banting's 1864 pamphlet through the modern $34 billion industry. Heinz bought Weight Watchers in 1978, creating an operation that profited from food that contributes to weight gain, food that aims to reverse it, and guidance for those caught between the two. Other manufacturers followed suit, with Nestlé, Unilever, and private equity firms acquiring major diet brands. A 2005 review found Weight Watchers produced average weight loss of just over 5 percent, declining to barely 3 percent after two years. The industry later pledged to cut trillions of calories from products, but independent review revealed reductions of only 78 calories per person per day, with the largest decrease from lower sales of fresh and frozen vegetables.

The final chapter examines the industry's efforts to retain consumer trust: adding protein and fiber to products (though research suggests most added fibers do not reduce appetite); investigating genetic and epigenetic factors in obesity, where epigenetics refers to modifications in how genes are expressed rather than changes to the genes themselves; and developing sweet taste enhancers that trick tongue receptors into perceiving more sweetness than is present, allowing less sugar while maintaining addictive appeal.

In the epilogue, Moss proposes practical strategies: slowing down eating to engage the brain's restraint mechanisms, building new food memories to replace industry-created ones, and borrowing tactics from other addictions. He cautions that the industry will continue to adapt, noting that fig flavor is already being engineered into cereal, energy drinks, and pizza. When consumers change what they eat, the companies change what they make.