Daniel Lieberman: 'Dieting is a disaster for everyone'

Harvard's professor of human evolutionary biology explains why obesity is the major 21st-century problem – and why we are ill-equipped to deal with itDaniel Lieberman is a professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard and has published numerous studies about why the human body looks and behaves the way it does. His new book is Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health and Disease. One of his current areas of study is the advantages of barefoot running.Your book has lots of messages in it that people might take away and use to adjust their behaviour. That was my goal. A lot of good books have been written about the health crisis we face today but I felt that we still lack a good book that explains from an evolutionary perspective why diet and exercise really do matter. I think people often have a hard time putting together why what happened in our past is relevant to how we live today. It enriches not only our understanding of why we get sick, but also helps us figure out ways to prevent illness.What would be the three main ideas you'd hope people would take away from your book?First, our bodies are really a hodge-podge of adaptation that accrued over a very long and complex history, that didn't evolve only to make us healthy but evolved to make our ancestors have lots of offspring. As a result, our bodies don't do the right things in the environment we live in today.Point number two is related: the body has evolved but also cultural evolution and natural selection is ...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Obesity Diets and dieting Evolution Biology Society Features Life and style The Observer Interviews Science Source Type: news