obesity, a different historical &cultural perspective..

[undergroundpanther]

Our present distaste for fat bodies runs counter not only to most of history but also - it seems - to evolution. The evidence lies in the comparisons we like to make between ourselves and other animals. We agonise about what, if anything, makes humans different.

One answer - and one we are generally reluctant to give - is that we are exceptionally fat animals. The biologist Caroline Pond has pointed out that an average middle-aged modern Western woman, with a body-mass index well short of overweight, has relatively more adipose tissue in her body by weight than a penguin or a polar bear. No other animal secretes so much fat, proportionately, in so many areas of the body as humans. We do not know the evolutionary reason for this - but presumably there must be one.
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=193257§ioncode=26

Fascinating stuff this article..

[AngryAmish]

1. Interesting

I think I agree with the author.

[damntexdem]

2. What was healthy for our long-ago ancestors is not for us.

We crave salt: we developed in salt-deficient areas.

We love fat: fat was hard for our early ancestors to get, and they had to run and fight hard to get it -- we were cursorial hunters, often slower than our prey but able to outlast them and wear them down.

Now we are largely sedentary but have unrestricted access to salt and fat.

[Fireweed247]

3. that was interesting

it makes one wonder where we would be if we were constantly indoctrinated with larger people in hollywood, american idol etc. You can see it in our tv culture in just the last 40 years, Marilyn Monroe would probably be considered fat now.
TV stars are getting skinnier and skinnier, the standards that are being set now are absurd not to mention unhealthy.