Filed under: Advice, Health, Fitness, Fit Family Guy
Anyone who is overweight can blame their genes. Mind you, anyone whose genes survived the millennia of culling through natural selection can thank that same genetic material.
To one degree or another, the vast majority of humanity is genetically programmed to be fat-storers. This was a valuable survival trait that saw homo sapiens through some tough times in our history. In terms of caloric intake, we’ve seen far more lean times than feast times. In case you haven’t noticed from looking around you, we’re in a time of feast right now.
Prior to the 20th century hunger was commonplace. So was physical activity. We didn’t have machines doing most of our labour for us, nor did we have much food to eat. What’s more, the food we did eat was unprocessed and didn’t taste as good. There were no bags of Miss Vickie’s salt and vinegar potato chips, there were no Pizza Huts, and there was nothing resembling a Dairy Queen Peanut Buster Parfait. Even when people did have enough to eat it was more of a challenge to engage in massive gluttony because you can only scarf so much meat, whole grains, fruit and vegetables. When you’ve been working the fields all day or tracking mammoths through the wilderness, you can only force yourself to eat so much if it doesn’t taste like Haagen Dazs.
Learn more after the jump.
Continue reading Obesity, Longevity, and the Paradox of Living in the Modern Age