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Controlling the American Appetite

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(flickr/robertpaulyoung; click for full image)
(Photo: Flickr/robertpaulyoung; click for full image)

Remember David Kessler back in the 1990s, when he was head of the FDA? The guy who took on Big Tobacco?
He’s on a new crusade now, and it's not about smoking, it's about eating — about our national culture of food. He points to a huge and profitable food industry and its legion of well-paid scientists who work hard to make their products literally irresistible, to make us eat almost non-stop.
He says we’ve got to understand our own appetites, and to change how America looks at food.
This hour, On Point: David Kessler on controlling the American appetite.
You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.Guest:

Dr. David Kessler joins us from San Francisco. He was Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration from 1990-1997, under the first President Bush and President Clinton. During his time at the FDA, he led the campaign to regulate tobacco and the landmark lawsuit FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. He is a pediatrician and lawyer. His new book is "The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite."

Read an excerpt from the book, in which Kessler goes "inside the unregulated, wild world of food processing."

This program aired on July 2, 2009.

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