Why do humans have a preference to over eat or over indulge and not just be satisfied with what is needed to sustain their life and health?
In: Biology
The human body is designed to take advantage of nutrients when they are available as it evolved to endure periods where food might not be consistently available. This is why fatty, sugary, and salty foods are so appealing to the human palate, because naturally those tend to be the most calorie dense foods found in nature. What isnt immediately used as fuel gets stored as fat for later, which is great when starvation is a constant threat.
In the modern day, with the rise of agriculture and global shipping routes humans made it so there are virtually no points in time where food is scarce in developed civilization, however the human body is still adapted to consume as much food as it can whenever available, so the cravings to eat more than necessary are still around even if the risk of starving is practically eradicated in developed civilization.
TLDR: the human body is designed to assume food is inconsistently available so in a time where human civilization has made food practically unlimited all the time the adaptions to avoid starvation are still present resulting in unhealthy weight gain.
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