Fri February 1, 2013 Pig Out In The Winter Or When Money's
Tight? Blame Evolution Originally published on Fri February 1,
2013 4:39 pm 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. That response, while perfectly
suited for prehistoric times, is maladaptive today, when more
people in wealthy countries such as the United States a