An evolutionary tale of human obesity

[^_^ 5,021]

** sapiens screwed the Neanderthals in more ways than one. We had a much more flexible and variable diet, and when we emigrated from Northern Africa to Europe and Asia around 100,000 years ago, we brought along with us an impressively evolved suite of anatomical, cognitive and social advantages that the Neanderthals—who’d been rigidly specialized to Ice Age conditions—just couldn’t compete with. Perhaps most important of all adaptations allowing us to edge out the last remaining Neanderthals, however, was our ancestors’ differential capacity to get fat—or at least, to store “energy reserves” in the form of adipose tissue that the body could draw from in times of scarcity and famine that came with often extreme seasonal fluctuations. Although the human foraging strategy enabled permanent settlement in nearly all of Earth’s ecological niches, food availability was massively unpredictable; it was literally a world of feast or famine, and so squirreling away energy reserves as fat deposits in our bodies supplied vital backup fuel during famine or incapacity (such as during pregnancy and the long period of dependency in young children), as well as the go-to energy source required for significant subsistence-related physical exertion.

According to Ulijaszek and Lofink, it is highly probable that natural selection operated on human phenotypes that were better able to store fat in this manner. That is to say, human fatness evolved, and it was in fact a remarkable evolutionary innovation. Compared to any other primate species, human beings have substantially greater levels of body fatness and reduced levels of muscle mass. When I was an undergraduate, I used to baby-sit a chimpanzee named Noelle, who at six months of age could easily lift herself up with one hand and had the biceps to show for it. That may sound impressive—and indeed it is in the physical fitness domain. Yet while Noelle’s chubby human counterparts lacked her muscle mass and could barely sit up at the same age, all that baby fat (enabled largely by their human mother’s own fat lower bodies) was busy giving them a cognitive advantage by providing these human infants with all that stored energy for costly brain metabolism and simultaneously reducing their energy expenditure by rendering them largely immobile. In other words, human evolution underwent a sort of trade-off of brawn for brains; and genes for fatness, especially as they are expressed during the long dependent period of human infancy when babies are undergoing rapid, radical cognitive change, played a vital role in the origins of human intelligence.

...

If you’re an obese person and can trace your being significantly overweight to some combination of genetic factors—over 600 genes, markers and chromosomal regions have been associated with human obesity phenotypes using the Human Genome Obesity Map, and these heritable factors include everything from individual differences in metabolic rates to the tendency to engage in spontaneous physical activity to specific syndromes involving deficiencies of energy-regulating peptides—there’s a good chance that your genetic makeup would have given you a leg-up over your “naturally skinny” peers if only you’d been born about 10,000 years earlier. This is probably why you have these genetic contributions to your obesity today, in fact, because they helped your adipose-pocketing ancestors survive during food shortages.

It was 10,000 years ago, during the transition to the Neolithic period and, more specifically, to an agricultural lifestyle and the subsequent abandonment of foraging, that the tide began to turn and these fat-storing genes, ironically, became deadly.

...

In fact, Ulijaszek and Lofink argue that it was actually only about 60 years ago—after the dust settled from WWII and with the advent of slick advertising, cheap transport and prepackaged convenience foods—that those old, previously adaptive fat genotypes that evolved during the Palaeolithic -era materialized into the crippling, plus-sized problem that we have today. This is such a tiny sliver of time in our species’ evolutionary history that it can hardly be expressed mathematically, but needless to say, it is not enough time for natural selection to counteract what was, for so long before, clearly adaptive.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=the-fattest-ape-an-evolutionary-tal-2010-11-02

[Obama 2012 1,714]

While there are some people that have genetic issues, the overwhelmingly majority of 'fat' people are just damn lazy and eat ####### food all the time.

[^_^ 5,021]

While there are some people that have genetic issues, the overwhelmingly majority of 'fat' people are just damn lazy and eat ####### food all the time.

If you read the excerpt I posted, you'd find that the author doesn't necessarily disagree with you.

Of course, you'd have to have actually read it.

[Peikko 1,575]

Read AND understand what it says. It's interesting and plausible.

[Obama 2012 1,714]

If you read the excerpt I posted, you'd find that the author doesn't necessarily disagree with you.

Of course, you'd have to have actually read it.

I was choosing to read like a librul. You posted something and bolded what you deemed important. I thought that was the part that mattered.

[^_^ 5,021]

I was choosing to read like a librul. You posted something and bolded what you deemed important. I thought that was the part that mattered.

That's reading like a community college dropout.

[The_Dude 1,142]

I was choosing to read like a librul. You posted something and bolded what you deemed important. I thought that was the part that mattered.

Actually Paul, that would be Breitbart Reading Technique, all you do is cherrypick quotes from someone in order to make it look like they are supporting your viewpoint.

[Obama 2012 1,714]

Actually Paul, that would be Breitbart Reading Technique, all you do is cherrypick quotes from someone in order to make it look like they are supporting your viewpoint.

Breitbart, the Daily Kos, and Media Matters should really get together. They might produce a full/complete story somewhere in there.

[The_Dude 1,142]

Breitbart, the Daily Kos, and Media Matters should really get together. They might produce a full/complete story somewhere in there.

Although Daily Kos and Media Matters do slant left, they don't selectively edit videos and stories to suit their agenda. Breitbart is a hack.

[Obama 2012 1,714]

Although Daily Kos and Media Matters do slant left, they don't selectively edit videos and stories to suit their agenda. Breitbart is a hack.

Daily Kos doesn't do it all the time, but cmon.. Media Matters blatantly takes everything out of context and only gives you the parts they want you to hear. Hell they try to make mountains out of molehills all the time.

Media Matters story:

John Doe Conservative said in a speech, "gay" therefore John Doe is bashing and hates "gay people." He's an evil bigot. Protest against him now minions........

The real story was; John Doe in support of the Gay community's new outreach program, that he said, "the gay community has come a long way and I think it's great what they are going here."

[mawilson 2,133]

While there are some people that have genetic issues, the overwhelmingly majority of 'fat' people are just damn lazy and eat ####### food all the time.

And look like Neanderthals, which contradicts the article.

[^_^ 5,021]

And look like Neanderthals, which contradicts the article.

Actually, I'd recommend you go read the entire article. There are some interesting observations on what Neanderthals looked like. I didn't post them here and if you go read the article you'll know why.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Actually, I'd recommend you go read the entire article. There are some interesting observations on what Neanderthals looked like. I didn't post them here and if you go read the article you'll know why.

I've slept with a Neanderthal woman before.

[The_Dude 1,142]

Daily Kos doesn't do it all the time, but cmon.. Media Matters blatantly takes everything out of context and only gives you the parts they want you to hear. Hell they try to make mountains out of molehills all the time.

Media Matters story:

John Doe Conservative said in a speech, "gay" therefore John Doe is bashing and hates "gay people." He's an evil bigot. Protest against him now minions........

The real story was; John Doe in support of the Gay community's new outreach program, that he said, "the gay community has come a long way and I think it's great what they are going here."

Paul, when was the last time you actually watched a media matters video, or for that matter, read a story they post? Yes, they are a bit manic in their intention, but they post the the full video or audio to show context. Not like Breitbart's hack jobs.

[Obama 2012 1,714]

Paul, when was the last time you actually watched a media matters video, or for that matter, read a story they post? Yes, they are a bit manic in their intention, but they post the the full video or audio to show context. Not like Breitbart's hack jobs.

It's been about 6 months or so since I've been on there because I got tired of the BS... They try and play a lot of "gotcha" type #######, which is the majority of time not at all where the intentions were. Hell, they even convinced Harry Reid to write a letter to Clear Channel a couple of years ago over a Limbaugh comment that was taken out of context.. I guess it wasn't in Reid's or Dems best interest to get the context/understand what was said first... A charity got a few million dollars off that letter though when it was sold on ebay.... Want proof Washington is broken? Politicians are taking their talking points from political hack job bloggers/sites... (both parties).