Hooked: Food, Free Will, and How the Food Giants Exploit Our Addictions

by Michael Moss

In this, too, there’s a need for some clarification. How much trouble are we talking about? And how hard must it be to put on the brakes for us to be considered addicted? Having to say no to an extra helping of strawberry shortcake might not be any fun, yet, for many of us, it’s not all that difficult, either, and thus would hardly qualify as an addiction. But I’ve met people who can’t stop themselves after having just a taste of sugar. They rush to the store for more sweets and then trash their car with empty wrappers as they binge on the drive home, with a compulsion so strong that they are hardly even aware of what they’re doing. What kinds of disordered behavior fall between those two extremes? And where, on that spectrum, does our loss of control reach the threshold of being defined as addiction?