The human species has a pretty bad habit of burning a bunch of calories each day, mostly in the form of energy we expend for food. If you’ve been out of the habit of eating a lot of carbs, you’re probably not going to be in a great mood to watch your diet.
Evolutionary biologists are studying this phenomenon because it might reveal how our ancestors had to work as a society, using food to maintain a healthy body weight. This theory is called the “work-to-live” hypothesis. It states that our ancestors ate a lot of carbohydrates, but when they were on the move or when they became too tired, they would have to find some other way of gaining energy. This theory is based on a theory coined by biologist Richard Dawkins.
After a bunch of new findings came out about how our ancestors ate, the work-to-live hypothesis was quickly disproved by those same scientists, but the idea of how our ancestors gained energy continued to be examined. It was thought that our ancestors developed to be fat and lazy because of our food intake, but more recently, scientists have come up with some intriguing new findings.
According to a new study in Biological Psychology, it seems human beings are genetically programmed to burn a lot of calories in the form of fat. Our ancestors didn’t just get fat because of our lifestyle, they actually got fat more on average. The reason? Eating a lot of food that was high in fat, like meat or dairy. This new study suggests that it’s not just our ancestors that got fat, but that we are also genetically programmed for fat.
According to the study, the average person only burns 500 calories a day for each pound of body fat. This means that a person who weighs 350 pounds and eats 500 calories a day will burn another 250 calories a day for each pound of fat. But that is only half of what it would take to burn that much fat in a year. So with that said, we can see that our ancestors were actually more active too. They were moving, not sitting still.
From the study we can see that many of our ancestors were able to get off the couch and in the fresh air during the last ice age. What we have in this study is a human that was able and actually had the ability to do what our ancestors almost certainly couldn’t.
I’m not entirely sure I buy that. Sure, we have some modern diseases like cancer and heart disease, but I think it’s far more likely that some of those diseases were due to lifestyle choices. And no matter what we know about human evolution, I don’t think we’ve ever seen a great ape with an ability to walk around a tree at the age of 2.
Evolutionary research makes us think that our ancestors were all “special”. All the really useful tools and inventions, they did it without a second thought. But then there are those genes and traits that are passed down from generation to generation. We’ve all seen modern humans with an innate ability to walk, but we dont know why they were born with it. We just know that they inherited it from their ancestors.
A study by researchers at the University of California at Davis found that some of our ancestors had a genetic mutation that allowed them to walk for several years without getting tired. However, this ability only lasted for a couple of generations. After that, we lost this ability. According to the study, this genetic mutation was “associated with the retention of the ability for two to three generations”.
Evolutionary biologists have found a similar gene in humans that helps them burn calories. Scientists from the University of California at Davis found out that a gene called MC4R was responsible for this ability. It allows our ancestors to walk for years without getting tired. This gene, however, only lasts for a couple of generations. After that, we lose it. This gene is strongly associated with the retention of the ability for at least two to three generations.