According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), obesity in th

Question

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), obesity in the U.S. population increased from about 12% in 1991 to about 34% in 2006. The highest increase occurred in 18- to 29-year-olds. Although part of the reason is our increasingly sedentary lifestyle, the principal cause is our overconsumption of abundant processed food products, many of which are high in fat and sugar content. Why do you think fat tastes good to so many people, and is difficult to resist? Consider the fact that our appetites and digestive systems evolved over time under very different circumstances. Are there advantages to our tendency to eat too much that would have been selected for in the course of human evolution? How can we, as a society, deal with the problem?

Explanation / Answer

Processed foods come with many artificial taste makers and also with high fat and sugar content. The kind of taste is different and pleasurable and makes one to eat more and more. Fat rich foods tastes good because of its soft texture.

People who tend to eat more fat have less receptors in their tongue which senses fat. Fat receptors plays a major role in people who become obese as they don't get signal from their receptors to stop eating more fat.

In the human evolution, our ancestors when they were hunter-gatherers, they don't get food more often, so, they had to eat more fat rich food which can give more calories than carbohydrates. It is the evolutionary habit to eat more when food is abundant and sustain living when food is scarce.

But for the modern lifestyle, this is not at all an advantage, as people work less and eat more. Now, the food is available more than what is required and people started eating food just as an hobby and for pleasure.

So, to overcome the problem of obesity, people have to eat according to the type of work they do daily. Calories taken in should balance the calories burned out.

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