Here’s my conversation with Dr. Robert Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist and UCSF professor, about his book, “The Hacking of the American Mind: The Science Behind the Corporate Takeover of Our Bodies and Brains.” We discussed the thesis of his book, that “marketing, media, and technology have capitalized on subverting our brain physiology to their advantage in order to veer us away from the pursuit of happiness to the pursuit of pleasure, which for them of course equals the pursuit of profit.”
We talked about the difference between happiness and pleasure, whether all our devices that supposedly make our lives easier actually do, and whether they’re shortening our attention spans. Then we delved into how the food we eat has changed over the decades, whether this is purely an American phenomenon, and his four-word recipe for making ourselves healthier.
Listen to our conversation here.