Pig Out In The Winter Or When Money’s Tight? Blame Evolution
NPR:
Has the recession made you fat?
To the long and growing list of risk factors known to increase the risk of obesity, scientists recently added a new one: scarcity.
People given subtle cues that they may have to confront harsh conditions in the near future choose to eat higher-calorie food than they might do otherwise, a response that researchers believe is shaped by the long hand of evolution.
Evolutionary biologists have long speculated that in prehistoric times, when the blueprint of modern human behavior was created as our ancestors struggled for survival, gluttony may have been a useful response to scarcity: If you knew — or feared — a famine was coming, it made sense to tuck away as many calories as possible to prepare for it.
Read the whole story: NPR
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