Orangutans, Obesity, and Human Evolution - AMNH SciCafe 

Good catch!

Sure, I can also imagine many a great things. Thing is however, that imagination can take a run with us sometimes, because who is to say that humans, or even in a broader sense, animals wouldn't get all those problems because of excessive weight gain? Well just look at rats, an even more distant relative than orangutans. They can get very similar health problems from obesity as we do. It's just overloading a system that is not built for the kind of environment we are putting it in, we have way better access to way more nutritious food all throughout the year, no matter the weather and with minimal effort. That just didn't happen back when we came to be as we are now, through natural selection. We also didn't get to become as old as we do now, living far beyond a reproductive age and now even further beyond being a clear benefit to the social system we reside in. The system works like that because it's just that the benefits of gaining weight far outweighed the drawbacks of putting on too much weight. That rarely ever happened and almost never happens nowadays in nature we can observe as well (just look at how well the orangutans are able to balance their diet), unless we change their diet (like we've done with testing on rats to study obesity).

What your not keeping in mind, I believe, is humans tend to get fat and stay that way because their food sources are fairly constant. Where orangutans get fatter and thinner throughout their lives as their food resources vary.

The underlying causes of health problems from overeating are well-known: look up "metabolic syndrome". There is also evolutionary pressure that has already favored those with resistance to those problems, as various population studies have shown. But persistence (in overeating) can overwhelm resistance (against health problems).

The thing to keep in mind is that in our evolutionary history, we didn't have processed food falling off the shelves and into our mouths. We had to work very hard constantly to stay fed. The genes that regulated our fat generation were there to keep us from starving in lean times. To convert and burn, and store when possible. NOW, in the modern age we are eating alot of high card/ calorie foods in much higher quantities. The same genes that kept us from starving are now storing fat that we don't burn readily, because we are living in an environment where we don't work as hard for our meals and have very high calorie intake per work unit. Especially in places like America and some others. We drive instead of walk, we sit, we watch tv and you tube. There were not alot of fat people before. Diabetes is basically new and caused by our lifestyle. Eat less, eat natural, work hard, drink lots of water and it will vanish for the most part.

> why does getting fatter hurt our health? In humans, the visceral fat cells becomes damaged causing an inflammatory response that affects rest of the body. They put on fat mostly from carbs, we pack fat from multiple sources including refined and hydrogenated oils.

Yes, the conclusions of this study when applied to humans are a gross oversimplification. It does not take into account that Western diet contains a lot of processed food with marginal amount of fibers and plenty of salt, sugars (fructose, saccharose), and substances like sweeteners and other inventions.

Fruits provide water. Trees know how much we need water.

Doug D I hate how she pronounces there name

@@goodone8049 Ironically, her pronunciation is closer to the proper pronunciation but then again, nobody agrees on what actually IS correct ha ha.