PositiveThe Wall Street JournalWhat if the foods we’re scarfing down have been designed and marketed to become addictive? While presenting his case, Mr. Moss offers a gripping, if incomplete, tour of America’s food landscape, taking side trips into biology and psychology and, not least, into the world of corporate food conglomerates. Mr. Moss begins with the science of addiction. A skilled storyteller, he talks to an array of experts and cites surprising facts—for instance, 17% of those who try cocaine, and 15% who try alcohol, become addicted. The definition of addiction he likes best—\'a repetitive behavior that some people find difficult to quit\' ... One major theme of Hooked is that the food industry exploits this mismatch—even creates it. Mr. Moss argues that the industry’s growth has been enabled by its \'manipulation of our instinctual desires,\' not least through marketing and sales strategies ... Mr. Moss identifies the problems across America’s food culture, but his account would have benefited from a deeper exploration of counterarguments to his addiction thesis. He portrays individuals as having little or no capacity for reasoned judgment or for controlling their desires and replacing bad habits with good ones. It’s an uncomfortable fact that many Americans recognize they’re eating unhealthy food and continue to do so for reasons other than addiction. Mr. Moss briefly mentions research showing that only 15% of us meet the food-addict criteria.
