Capsule Reviews

The Psychology of Overeating, The Hidden Half of Nature, The Death of Cancer, and The Secret of Our Success

Written byBob Grant

| 4 min read

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Kima Cargill
Bloomsbury Academic, October 2015

Oof. You’ve done it again. You push away from the dinner table, and the button atop the zipper of your jeans creaks, holding on for dear life. You’re stuffed. Why? WHY did you do it to yourself again?!? According to University of Washington Tacoma psychologist Kima Cargill, it might not be entirely your fault.

In The Psychology of Overeating, Cargill posits that our consumer culture is at least partly to blame for our bloated waistlines. Likening “Big Food” to “Big Pharma,” the author faults food and beverage companies for manufacturing desire in human beings, who may be conditioned by evolution to gorge on nutrient sources as they become available.

Cargill uses case studies of people who overconsume for a ...

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Meet the Author

Bob Grant
From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer. Before joining the team, he worked as a reporter at Audubon and earned a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University. In his previous life, he pursued a career in science, getting a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Montana State University and a master’s degree in marine biology from the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Bob edited Reading Frames and other sections of the magazine.
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