What I found, over four years of research and reporting, was a conscious effort — taking place in labs and marketing meetings and grocery-store aisles — to get people hooked on foods that are convenient and inexpensive.

The fast-food industry has moved into the grocery store, so you no longer have to go to a fast-food chain to find problematic foods.

Health messages are simply overwhelmed, in volume and in effectiveness, by junk-food ads that often deploy celebrities or cartoon characters to great effect. We may know that eating fruits and vegetables is good for us, but the preponderance of the signals we get - and especially the signals children get - push us in the direction of junk food.

Each year, food companies use an amount of salt that is every bit as staggering as it sounds: 5 billion pounds.

Some of the largest companies are now using brain scans to study how we react neurologically to certain foods, especially to sugar. They've discovered that the brain lights up for sugar the same way it does for cocaine...

In a key--but commonly overlooked--aspect of obesity, weight gain can be caused by the slightest increases in consumption, if it continues day in and day out.

What I found, over four years of research and reporting, was a conscious effort — taking place in labs and marketing meetings and grocery-store aisles — to get people hooked on foods that are convenient and inexpensive.