death by abundance

In this Slate article, ("Please Do Not Feed the Humans" or "The global explosion of fat") William Saletan discusses how our species evolved in an environment of food scarcity. The recent (last century) abundance of food has happened too fast for evolution to counter said abundance with improved inherited "time to stop eating" mechanisms and anti-obesity, anti-diabetes, anti-heart attack mechanisms, etc. We're being killed by the survival mechanisms that allowed our ancestors to survive long enough to beget us!

I remember worrying about losing 10 pounds in high school. I also remember girls being mocked for being 5 to 10 pounds overweight. Now, I'm probably 50 pounds overweight and can't seem to lose that weight. Sadly, I work with young men who are overweight to the point of looking pregnant.

Decades ago, I noted that poor blacks in southern Mississippi seemed to be the most obese. I later realized they were eating cheap and very high calory foods. A fairly snotty and apparently anti-American Brit ("The end of obesity?" by Gwynne Dyer) commented on this as well. This Brit expected the obesity epidemic to fizzle out due to "global warming" and a return to food scarcity by the end this century. (I take a certain amount of comfort in the realization that diabetes and probable heart problems and simply age will render me dead well before then. I was born in 1951...)

In spite of my gloomy belief the human race will kill itself off in the next century or two (probably via that old standby, killing over religious differences). Perhaps not the death of the entire species, maybe a small enough fraction of the current overpopulation will survive and humans will once again be were they were for so many millienum: on the endangered species list! (I smirk whilst reading this but I really hope it doesn't happen. I want the various kids in my family and the families of friends to survive. I'd be lying if I said I worried about foreigners...)