It seems fairly obvious that you’re right about why humans become fat—i.e., because in our evolutionary past, it was adaptive to do so when there was a lot of food around—but I don’t see how you get from that point to “doctors are … playing the status game and consider thin beautiful” rather than “medical research has shown that obese people are at a higher risk from certain health problems”. It’s perfectly possible, and seems quite probable, that gaining weight is adaptive only a) up to a certain point, which was extremely rarely reached until recently, and/or b) under the actual conditions it was adaptive to—that is, when the weight is highly likely to come off again during a period of famine.
Perhaps I should have split this into two comments, then maybe it wouldn’t have gotten downvoted so far. Oh well, live and learn.
Yes, I agree that gaining weight is adaptive only up to a certain point, in part because in the ancestral environment there was not opportunity to get excessively fat. And I don’t deny that putting on extra weight is not really necessary in the first world. But having and maintaining a BMI in the “overweight” range does not appear to be dangerous and is arguably the body’s ideal state, since having less fat stores would be a real disadvantage.
I am probably guilty of making some too-big jumps in my reasoning to explain why fat is currently looked down on. I’m not entirely sure where they are, though, so if there’s any points in particular that need explanation let me know. Maybe we’ll find a flaw in my reasoning that I didn’t expect to be there in the details.
It seems fairly obvious that you’re right about why humans become fat—i.e., because in our evolutionary past, it was adaptive to do so when there was a lot of food around—but I don’t see how you get from that point to “doctors are … playing the status game and consider thin beautiful” rather than “medical research has shown that obese people are at a higher risk from certain health problems”. It’s perfectly possible, and seems quite probable, that gaining weight is adaptive only a) up to a certain point, which was extremely rarely reached until recently, and/or b) under the actual conditions it was adaptive to—that is, when the weight is highly likely to come off again during a period of famine.
Perhaps I should have split this into two comments, then maybe it wouldn’t have gotten downvoted so far. Oh well, live and learn.
Yes, I agree that gaining weight is adaptive only up to a certain point, in part because in the ancestral environment there was not opportunity to get excessively fat. And I don’t deny that putting on extra weight is not really necessary in the first world. But having and maintaining a BMI in the “overweight” range does not appear to be dangerous and is arguably the body’s ideal state, since having less fat stores would be a real disadvantage.
I am probably guilty of making some too-big jumps in my reasoning to explain why fat is currently looked down on. I’m not entirely sure where they are, though, so if there’s any points in particular that need explanation let me know. Maybe we’ll find a flaw in my reasoning that I didn’t expect to be there in the details.