On Sep 30, 2:43 pm, wrote:
27/09/2007 UK Daily Telegraph

William Leith reviews Waistland: the (R)evolutionary Science behind
our Weight and Fitness Crises by Deirdre Barrett

At the start of this sensible book about the "weight and fitness
crisis" in America, the Harvard psychologist Deirdre Barrett tells us
some shocking things. By 1995, she says, two-thirds of Americans were
overweight, hundreds of thousands were dying fat-related deaths, being
overweight was people's most common gripe and obesity was poised to
overtake smoking as the biggest cause of preventable death. All of
this, she says, accounted for $99 billion in medical costs.

What's more shocking is that, as she points out, in the decade since
then, things have got much worse - by 2004, people were eating 50 per
cent more fast food, and the annual medical bill had risen to $117
billion. The problem, in other words, is bad, and it's getting worse,
and we can't seem to stop it. So why does fattening food - sugar,
starch and fat itself - have such a grip on us?

The answer, says Barrett, lies in the study of evolution. As animals,
we are genetically almost identical to our Stone Age ancestors. We
live in advanced societies, with supermarkets and cars and lifts, but
we are built to be hunter-gatherers. We are programmed to seek out
fat, sugar, starch and salt, because, in the Stone Age, these things
were hard to come by. When they turn up in abundance, our bodies, for
the most part, can't say no.

She tells us lots of interesting things about our hunter-gatherer
ancestors, who immediately preceded the first farmers. The point about
farming, she says, is that, although it makes populations bigger and
tribes more powerful, it's not necessarily healthier for the
individual.

Rest of article hehttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main...07/09/27/bobar...

Book hehttp://www.amazon.com/Waistland-evol...hind-Fitness/d...

I agree that we are genetically set up to be hunter-gatherers, and not
farmers, (let alone office workers, lol). The problem with the hunter-
gatherer society is simply that it doesn't allow for much time/effort
in areas of specialization. Without this specialization,
we would be VERY much behind in our development of science and
industry - in every field.

In fact, we would be still quite primitive without the benefit of
farming and animal husbandry. These are the two benefits most
responsible for the rise of civilization, as a whole. Compare our
society with that of any hunter-gatherer tribe.

Another side to this is famine - a big killer in the hunter-gatherer
societies. Game animals move on, and can't always be followed
(typically they move into another tribe's land. If you enter that land
to hunt, you're likely to be killed). Native plants have times when
they will not produce due to lack of rain, (or too much rain),
infestation of grasshoppers/locusts, mites, mice, etc. In earlier
times, and even today in third world countries, famine is a big threat
to life. Even strong tribes of native american indians, like the
Lakota (Sioux), faced dreadful periods when they had to eat grass,
etc., just to stay alive. Despite the fact that the buffalo herds had
not been hunted yet by the white man.

No doubt, we are made to be moving and exercising/working a lot harder
than we do in our sedentary lifestyle, today. As we use our muscles
less, we also have less muscle mass, which causes us to need still
fewer calories to maintain ourselves. This, at the same time that we
have so many more quick and easy prepared foods which are not just
good tasting, but attractively packaged and marketed, with especially
heavy advertising.

Is there anyone in the modern world who doesn't know what a Big Mac
is?

Yet one Big Mac, with "regular fries", and a milk shake, has more
calories than most of us can eat in a whole day, without gaining fat.
We just aren't that active: we play video games, not ride bicycles; we
watch TV/Movies, or others playing sports - but we're not playing
them, we're just sitting on our butts, watching them, sedentary as you
please. We don't push the lawnmower to make it cut grass, we sit on
our butts, and have it push us around the yard.

It's stunning watching old film from the 40's and 50's. Right away,
you see how thin nearly everybody is - and strong, too. Our houses,
vehicles, even our airplanes, have all been re-designed to accommodate
not just an aging population, but a fatter and weaker one, as well.

It's a sad thing to see how our fitness and well-being, have gone
straight down the toilet.