Lean and Hard

They say you should "Know thine enemy." The better to defeat him, right? This is true about the temptation to eat more than you need to maintain good health and an attractive, strong body. The more you know about the circumstances and conditions that make it difficult to eat right, the better you will be empowered to counter and successfully resist. Hence, this interesting article:

NPR - February 1. 2013 by SHANKAR VEDANTAM

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.


Follow me on Twitter. Please subscribe to our RSS feed or sign up for free email updates.