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.

Science is starting to show that our brains are less able to detect calories in liquids. So, people in the know, including food industry executives, when they run into health trouble, the first thing they do is cut calories out of all the liquids that they drink as a way of maintaining their weight.

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...

Take a cup of coffee, keep adding sugar until you reach the point that you like it the most, and then when you add more sugar, you actually like it less. Well, the food industry knows that, and they spend huge amounts of effort finding the perfect spot, not just for sugar, but for fat and salt, as well.

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.

Every year, the average American eats as much as 33 pounds of cheese. That's up to 60,000 calories and 3,100 grams of saturated fat. So why do we eat so much cheese? Mainly it's because the government is in cahoots with the processed food industry. And instead of responding in earnest to the health crisis, they've spent the past 30 years getting people to eat more. This is the story of how we ended up doing just that.

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