An innovative dietary approach to obesity, based on the set-point theory of body weight and associative learning, was developed by Seth Roberts, professor of psychology at the University of California at Berkeley. The set-point theory was first proposed by G. Kennedy, who hypothesized that body fat, like body temperature, is controlled by a set point in a thermostat-like system. Based on this theory and subsequent work, Roberts hypothesized that people have a strong conditioned response to specific food items, which raises the weight set point, like a thermostat, stimulating appetite and storing the excess calories as fat. In an environment with attractive, easily accessible, inexpensive food, many people will gain weight. Roberts also hypothesizes that consistency in the presentation, labeling, and taste of mass produced food items today elicits a stronger conditioned response than in the past. Roberts's approach focuses on dissociating flavor and calories by consuming small amounts of very bland but calorie-dense foods such as extra-light olive oil or sugar water between meals. Roberts believes that the dissociation between flavor and calories lowers the body weight's set point, suppressing appetite and thereby inducing weight loss without causing hunger. Decreased oral intake naturally follows a decrease in appetite, without the hunger that normally quickly appears when people reduce their caloric intake, so people can eat an amount that feels comfortable without conscious dietary restriction. Roberts outlined this approach in a book titled "The Shangri-La Diet" because it is not really a diet at all. Given the originality of this approach, the successful outcomes accounted in the book and in anecdotes on the internet definitely warrant a closer look. Studying the feasibility of the Shangri-La Diet is particularly relevant to patients taking drugs that cause increased appetite and weight gain as a side effect, as increased hunger makes the usual calorie restriction approach even more difficult than it normally is. Low-income people have a diet higher in prepackaged standardized foods, which may be one contributing factor to their higher risk of developing obesity.