i'd need to look up the data to be sure, but my understanding is that...
1) body mass index -- while crude, is a serviceable ratio of height to weight -- has increased worldwide over the last several decades.
2) increases in a country's average bmi tend to correlate w/ increases in the country's gdp per capita.
so, if obesity is all genetic, humanity is undergoing rapid evolution, w/ abrupt increases in mutation rates correlated w/ economic growth. i had no idea we possessed that kind of environmental-genetic flexibility.
but the minnesota starvation study is nifty. i came across it a long time ago, and the article i read then had even more disturbing things about what long-term starvation did to the subjects' mental states.
no subject
1) body mass index -- while crude, is a serviceable ratio of height to weight -- has increased worldwide over the last several decades.
2) increases in a country's average bmi tend to correlate w/ increases in the country's gdp per capita.
so, if obesity is all genetic, humanity is undergoing rapid evolution, w/ abrupt increases in mutation rates correlated w/ economic growth. i had no idea we possessed that kind of environmental-genetic flexibility.
but the minnesota starvation study is nifty. i came across it a long time ago, and the article i read then had even more disturbing things about what long-term starvation did to the subjects' mental states.