# How do people get so fat?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [October 14, 2009, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763 "2009-10-14T08:22:14Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 33
### Author:  [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2009, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763/641 "2009-11-13T00:39:08Z")
> [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#):
>
> I’m talking about endurance running. Sure, cheetas go faster, other animals can run well enough. But humans actually are supreme when it comes to distance running. Our bodies are dramatically more efficient than other animals. Pound for pound animals are stronger in the immediate moment, but they burn up all their juice long before a (fit) human has to quit. Look into it!
I noticed that I didn’t answer this directly, in my prior post. I will do so now:
Horse.
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### Author:  [@rhubarbarin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rhubarbarin)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2009, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763/642 "2009-11-13T01:38:04Z")
Actually begbert, humans beat horses easily in an endurance race. Thoroughbreds only run a couple miles at a time for a reason. All those novels you might have read where the horse gallops all night - physically impossible.
Almost every other animal has a breath rate that is tied to their stride (when you have four legs and your abdomen folds with each stride, the breath is forced in and out of your lungs). Also, they don’t sweat, so they can’t regulate their temperature as effectively. They are all sprinters, compared to us.
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### Author:  [@not\_alice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_alice)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2009, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763/643 "2009-11-13T02:40:35Z")
> [@aruvqan](#):
>
> snip…
How about non-weight bearing aerobic exercise to go along with those 1800 calories?
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### Author:  [@meara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/meara)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2009, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763/644 "2009-11-13T03:55:05Z")
> [@begbert2](#):
>
> Have you _read_ those links? “Consider the fact that some 334,000 people ran marathons in the United States last year, and then try getting an antelope to run 26 miles, or a chimp, for that matter.” Yeah, right, and try getting _me_ to run 26 miles either for that matter! This is a joke. Cobbled excuse for science biased towards a preconcieved notion. Similar efforts have concluded that we evolved from fish-men.
I winced at that line too, but there’s a lot more to that study than that. Look at the long, bulleted list at the end of the Science Daily link. Clearly, there’s no way to definitively prove an evolutionary theory like this, but the evidence presented makes a strong case.
BTW, based on my observations, I’m pretty sure that most fit people could run 26 miles with a few months training (and most unfit people could do it with a year or two of weight loss and training). You probably wouldn’t set any speed records, but you could make the distance. Watch the end of a big city marathon sometime and you’ll see plenty of 250-300 pound people finishing in the 6-8 hour range.
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### Author:  [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2009, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763/645 "2009-11-13T04:40:52Z")
_Nova_ did a project like that, actually, and every single person except the one who got disqualified by stress fractures finished the marathon. None of them were runners or even in shape at the beginning of the year.
It was kind of stupid, though, because they put them in the Boston Marathon - why on earth would you want to run Boston if you couldn’t run fast? Run Chicago or New York or one of the other big city marathons - slow charity runners and sponsored runners at Boston run alone. They take down the barricades and you run on the sidewalks and such. Bad idea.
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### Author:  [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2009, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763/646 "2009-11-13T17:43:06Z")
> [@rhubarbarin](#):
>
> Actually begbert, humans beat horses easily in an endurance race. Thoroughbreds only run a couple miles at a time for a reason. All those novels you might have read where the horse gallops all night - physically impossible.
Gallop = sprint. Galloping horses beat sprinting humans. How about when a horse isn’t going full-tilt? How do we compare then?
Some thoughts have been crossing my mind about that wince-worthy line are, that when most animals run, it’s for the reason of either 1) predation, or 2) escape. In both cases, momentary speed is a _much_ more significant factor than long-term endurance. So, you’d natually expect animals to be sprinters.
But, does that mean that they _can’t_ endurance run? Not really. (Though it may be true in some cases, I suppose.) It just means that it’s difficult to do an easy test - if you get these things running, they’ll do it at top speed and either outrun you (or catch you) and stop, or you’ll pace them in your jeep and cause them to sprint to exhaustion.
Horses are a notable exception to this because humans have domesticated them to the point that they can control the animals’ speed. And guess what happens as a result? You have an animal that you _can_ have run along for a good long time, at a speed surpassing that of a marathon-running human (and they do this carrying a couple hundred pounds on their back).
Seriously folks. If humans were better distance runners than horses, we wouldn’t have bothered to domesticate horses for use as a method of individual transportation. They would have been at best relegated to the task of being draft animals like oxen, used only for their pulling power alone.
> [@rhubarbarin](#):
>
> Almost every other animal has a breath rate that is tied to their stride (when you have four legs and your abdomen folds with each stride, the breath is forced in and out of your lungs). Also, they don’t sweat, so they can’t regulate their temperature as effectively. They are all sprinters, compared to us.
I don’t see how the breath rate argument helps your case. And, sweating is a _bad_ thing for endurance running - a cro-magnon man didn’t have helpful people handing him bottles of water as he jogged along. How many marathon runners do it completely dry? I admit I’m not well-read, but (I think due to this thread) I read mention of one that did, and he was specifically pointed out as an anomaly in this regard, and he was not described as being able to carve up an exhausted mastadon afterwards.
> [@meara](#):
>
> I winced at that line too, but there’s a lot more to that study than that. Look at the long, bulleted list at the end of the Science Daily link. Clearly, there’s no way to definitively prove an evolutionary theory like this, but the evidence presented makes a strong case.
The list is post-hoc rationalization, tying various disparate features to running that don’t need to have anything to do with running - assuming they’re not just silly.
# Sweat cools the head better - but you don’t have to run to sweat. Savannas aren’t air-conditioned, and heat-stroke is worth avoiding even if you’re just walking.
# Yeah, long faces are a _real_ problem for horses, deer, dogs…look at how their heads bob around wildly as they run! What nonsense.
# Or the ligament just made it easer to stand erect with the head raised for long periods of time.
# Running is the only reason they could think of that it might be useful to be big and tall? And look how it’s supposed to help: more cooling? Twisting leg forces? Yeah, horses and dogs are really thrown around all crazy-like when they run, aren’t they? Gag me.
# In the picture the arms don’t look much shorter to me - it’s just that the rest of us is _taller_. So yeah.
# Or maybe it’s to help us stand erect longer.
# Same as prior.
# Or maybe it was useful to have greater leg strength, since we were standing erect all the time. (Apes on the other hand have awesome arms.)
# Or maybe it was just useful to get bigger.
# Or maybe it’s just to help us _stand up_.
# Same as above.
Seriously, at best this is a list of things that _fail to disprove_ the notion that man=runner. And this kind of “Start with preconcieved notion and look for things which can be somehow construed as supporting your theory” stuff is **exactly** the same sort of pseudoscientific bullcrap that gave rise to the aquatic ape hypothesis. I could use similar “logic” to show that we evolved specifically towards the goal of becoming titanic fatasses.
> [@meara](#):
>
> BTW, based on my observations, I’m pretty sure that most fit people could run 26 miles with a few months training (and most unfit people could do it with a year or two of weight loss and training). You probably wouldn’t set any speed records, but you could make the distance. Watch the end of a big city marathon sometime and you’ll see plenty of 250-300 pound people finishing in the 6-8 hour range.
26 miles in 8 hours is 3 1/4 miles per hour on average. That isn’t running speed, that’s a slightly hasty walk.
Not to say that it’s not impressive that they managed to keep walking for eight hours straight, if you’re into that sort of thing, but this is not exactly an argument for the protohuman loping across the plains outrunning vultures.
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### Author:  [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2009, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763/647 "2009-11-13T19:05:05Z")
> [@begbert2](#):
>
> Seriously folks. If humans were better distance runners than horses, we wouldn’t have bothered to domesticate horses for use as a method of individual transportation. They would have been at best relegated to the task of being draft animals like oxen, used only for their pulling power alone.
Now that’s a seriously stupid statement. I can walk to work a lot better than my car can drive me there, in many ways - it’s cheaper, I wouldn’t have to park it, I take up a lot less space on the road, I’m a much more efficient walker than my car is a driver. I drive to work because I don’t want to expend the effort, obviously.
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### Author:  [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2009, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763/648 "2009-11-13T19:09:57Z")
> [@Zsofia](#):
>
> Now that’s a seriously stupid statement. I can walk to work a lot better than my car can drive me there, in many ways - it’s cheaper, I wouldn’t have to park it, I take up a lot less space on the road, I’m a much more efficient walker than my car is a driver. I drive to work because I don’t want to expend the effort, obviously.
And you think that’s why humans went to the effort of domesticating equines?
They weren’t available mint off the lot, fully loaded.
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### Author:  [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2009, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763/649 "2009-11-13T19:35:46Z")
> [@BigT](#):
>
> i can’t cite it, but according to a doctor’s advertisement I got recently, there are medicines that help with overeating. These medicines modify someone’s brain chemistry.
I recall some TV commercials about new prescription drugs for this, but the older stimulants, including the amphetamines, are still approved for this purpose as well. They sure do modify your brain chemistry, but for such extremely overweight people that’s probably a good thing, the same way it is for people with ADD.
As for why people do get so fat, and barring cases of long term physical disability preventing normal activity and exercise, I think it might be a type of addiction. Unlike narcotics and powerful CNS drugs, though, which can kill a person immediately if they take too much, food doesn’t have that restraining factor. You might have a heart attack or stroke in ten years, but it won’t kill you today no matter how much you eat. So there’s no restraining factor. Last year I watched a couple of episodes of “The Biggest Loser”, and I couldn’t help but notice that none of the contestants really seemed to be drinkers. Alcoholics may get flabby, and they might get beer bellies, but they don’t get huge. Attempting to ingest enormous amounts of calories in the form of alcohol would result in overdose.
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### Author:  [@Epimetheus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Epimetheus)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2009, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763/650 "2009-11-13T19:54:04Z")
> [@begbert2](#):
>
> Seriously folks. If humans were better distance runners than horses, we wouldn’t have bothered to domesticate horses for use as a method of individual transportation. They would have been at best relegated to the task of being draft animals like oxen, used only for their pulling power alone.
I’m pretty certain it is accepted that humans ran animals into the ground when they were hunters. We won by endurance.
Humans are lazy by nature. It is probably some aspect of our intelligence. Much of what we have developed technologically is hardly “better” but just easier. Wheels are hard to get around with compared to feet. We have to have somewhat smooth roads, etc. It is easier (on us) to use wheeled carts rather than walk. Plus we mostly domesticated oxen and horses to pull the crap. It wasn’t one of endurance, but one of strength and utility.
[Cite](http://www.physorg.com/news95954919.html)
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### Author:  [@Epimetheus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Epimetheus)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2009, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763/651 "2009-11-13T20:03:40Z")
Also, check out the Tarahumara, from [wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarahumara#Athletic_prowess):
> [@](#):
>
> The word for themselves, Rarámuri, means “runners on foot” in their native tongue according to some early ethnographers like Norwegian Carl Lumholtz, though this interpretation has not been fully agreed upon. With widely dispersed settlements, these people developed a tradition of long-distance running for intervillage communication and transportation. The long-distance running tradition also has ceremonial and competitive aspects. Often, male runners kick wooden balls as they run in “foot throwing” competitions, and females use a stick and hoop. The foot throwing races are relays where the balls are kicked by the runners and relayed to the next runner while teammates run ahead to the next relay point. These races can last anywhere from a few hours for a short race to a couple of days without a break. The Rarámuri also practice persistence hunting, using their ability to run extremely long distances (sometimes as far as 160 km) to catch animals such as deer; the animals eventually tire and slow down, and the Rarámuri get close enough to the animal to kill it. [1]
[More on them](http://www.lehigh.edu/~dmd1/art.html) if you are interested.
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### Author:  [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2009, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763/652 "2009-11-13T20:21:49Z")
> [@begbert2](#):
>
> And you think that’s why humans went to the effort of domesticating equines?
>
> They weren’t available mint off the lot, fully loaded.
Uh, yeah. Obviously it is. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that one out. Why else would we do it, because little girls like horsies?
Now, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that horses were domesticated as draft animals before riding animals, but I’d expect that to be a function of size as well as training. And of course for meat. And once you get a horse to pull a thing the advantage in warfare is obvious, of course. But we domesticated horses to save labor for us just like how I bought a car to save labor for me, yes.
ETA - pretty much every advance we make as a species comes out of laziness. I’m tired of doing all this hunting and gathering - hey, what if the food just stayed here and I didn’t have to follow it? I’m sick of dragging shit all around town on a travois and walking around with it on my head - oh, I know, let’s invent the wheel! Cotton is a bitch and a half to get the seeds out… wonder if there’s a machine I could make?
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### Author:  [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2009, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763/653 "2009-11-13T22:02:04Z")
> [@Epimetheus](#):
>
> I’m pretty certain it is accepted that humans ran animals into the ground when they were hunters. We won by endurance.
>
> Humans are lazy by nature. It is probably some aspect of our intelligence. Much of what we have developed technologically is hardly “better” but just easier. Wheels are hard to get around with compared to feet. We have to have somewhat smooth roads, etc. It is easier (on us) to use wheeled carts rather than walk. Plus we mostly domesticated oxen and horses to pull the crap. It wasn’t one of endurance, but one of strength and utility.
>
> [Cite](http://www.physorg.com/news95954919.html)
The cite is more post-hoc “fit the evidence to the argument” crap. I particularly liked that they picked “advanced” weapons like the bow and arrow, rather than just ordinary weapons, as the marking point between when we should have been able to eat meat or not - and then magically decided that the only possible explanation for how we killed animals without bows was by running them to exhastion.
Me I thought that humans would sneak up on the critters, surround them, pick a target, and chuck spears at it. Then it would either stay and fight, or turn and run, _wounded_. Even wounded it would being much faster than the humans, of course, it would ditch them immediately, after which point the humans would have to track it. Might they make haste in doing so? Sure. But was the point to run the animal to exhaustion? Probably not. The point was probably to get where they could sneak up on it and injure it more, until it finally got around to actually dying of its injuries.
Seriously, I don’t care how many times this theory gets itself into online articles; the arguments are still specious and self-serving, targeting extremely specific and limited explanations when the evidence does nothing to limit them from drawing alternate conclusions. It’s not science, it’s speculative fiction.
I’ll get to the lazy human thing in a moment.
> [@Zsofia](#):
>
> Uh, yeah. Obviously it is. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that one out. Why else would we do it, because little girls like horsies?
>
> Now, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that horses were domesticated as draft animals before riding animals, but I’d expect that to be a function of size as well as training. And of course for meat. And once you get a horse to pull a thing the advantage in warfare is obvious, of course. But we domesticated horses to save labor for us just like how I bought a car to save labor for me, yes.
>
> ETA - pretty much every advance we make as a species comes out of laziness. I’m tired of doing all this hunting and gathering - hey, what if the food just stayed here and I didn’t have to follow it? I’m sick of dragging shit all around town on a travois and walking around with it on my head - oh, I know, let’s invent the wheel! Cotton is a bitch and a half to get the seeds out… wonder if there’s a machine I could make?
…Flying by flapping my arms is really tiring, I think I’ll build an airplane…
You know, I should never have given you this inch that you’re running for a mile. So I’m not going to bother with it. I don’t care why we domesticated horses. Maybe it never crossed a human’s mind to ride one until long after we had them pulling plows. I don’t care. _It just doesn’t matter_. Becuase regardless of historical theorizing and marathoner fantasizing, horses are still faster _and better at endurance running than humans_.
What you people wallowing in the fantasy of the human as the ultimate runner don’t realize is, [horses do marathons _too_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endurance_riding). And look at this: “Winning riders complete 100-mile (160 km) rides in 10-12 hours.” Whoooops, looks like the horses just kicked humanity’s collective asses. How long does it take _you_ to run 100 miles? And no, you can’t just take 2 hours per 26 miles and multipy by four; in an endurance contest cumulative wear _matters_. Keep also in mind that the riders aren’t allowed to run the horses into the ground, and that the horses running these competitions are doing it carrying a fifth of their body weight in cargo.
Oh dear. Looks like the facts don’t agree with you. Too bad for you.
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### Author:  [@Epimetheus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Epimetheus)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2009, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763/654 "2009-11-13T22:14:45Z")
Ok, continue to grind your axe because you hate exercise. The evidence doesn’t lie. You are blinded by your rage against exercise. Do you have a degree in anthropology? No? I didn’t think so, I’ll trust the guy from Harvard that does and is well respected rather than some heavyset lazy guy on the internet that thinks armchair intelligence and opinion trumps academically accepted FACTS.
Goodbye, I’m done with you.
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### Author:  [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2009, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763/655 "2009-11-13T22:21:30Z")
Winning times for 100-mile (human) ultramarathons are typically somewhere in the 16 to 20 hour range. I know you were probably asking that question facetiously, but since it does have a factual answer, I figured I might as well provide it.
Anyway, whether or not humans are the best endurance runners of any species on the planet (and did anyone ever say that they were, anyway?), I think it’s pretty obvious that our bodies are not evolved to be fat, blobby, and parked on a couch in front of a TV for 12 hours per day. (I await with eager anticipation the inevitable cite showing that some tribe in central Africa has evolved a symbiotic relationship with a neighboring tribe that does nothing but bring them potato chips and red cream soda all day long.)
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### Author:  [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2009, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763/656 "2009-11-13T22:31:06Z")
> [@Epimetheus](#):
>
> Ok, continue to grind your axe because you hate exercise. The evidence doesn’t lie. You are blinded by your rage against exercise. Do you have a degree in anthropology? No? I didn’t think so, I’ll trust the guy from Harvard that does and is well respected rather than some heavyset lazy guy on the internet that thinks armchair intelligence and opinion trumps academically accepted FACTS.
>
> Goodbye, I’m done with you.
So I take it that you don’t consider the FACT that horses kick your ass at endurance running to be true becuase you didn’t hear it from a guy at Harvard?
Remember kids, when in doubt, argue from authority. Because no matter how wrong you are, there’s gotta be some famous person somewhere just as wrong as you.
And come now, **MsWhatsit** , you know that all the fat african tribes have the _women_ in their tribe bring them their potato chips and red cream soda, which are grown wild in the potato chip and red cream soda fields. Get your facts right.
All silliness aside, I don’t need to engage in the same crap arguments people floating their running-man or aquatic-ape theories are forced to engage in. I merely need to point out how crappy their arguments _are_. One tribe that idolizes running out of hundreds that hunt using other methods is only proof of a marathoner genetic mandate to people who desperately want such a mandate to exist.
And **Try2B Comprehensive** was the one who said that humans are the best endurance runners of any species on the planet. Since you asked.
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### Author:  [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2009, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763/657 "2009-11-13T22:44:07Z")
So do you dispute that human bodies are evolutionarily well-suited for a certain amount of physical activity, or are you going to assert that sitting on your ass eating potato chips is how our bodies are supposed to work? Because I, for one, have never and would never assert that all humans should be running marathons or whatever. But I would certainly assert that humans should not be sitting on their asses getting zero exercise. Sure, you can lose weight even if you sit on your ass getting zero exercise, but losing weight isn’t all you need to do to be a healthy person. (And FYI, losing weight isn’t all you need to do to control diabetes, either, and I do strongly exhort you to check out a book on the topic. I’m not going to tell you anything more because you clearly think that I’m full of shit and are gleefully poking sarcastic little holes in everything I say, but seriously, for your long-term health you should really learn more about your chronic disease.)
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### Author:  [@Epimetheus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Epimetheus)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2009, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763/658 "2009-11-13T23:13:47Z")
> [@begbert2](#):
>
> So I take it that you don’t consider the FACT that horses kick your ass at endurance running to be true becuase you didn’t hear it from a guy at Harvard?
>
> Remember kids, when in doubt, argue from authority. Because no matter how wrong you are, there’s gotta be some famous person somewhere just as wrong as you.
Or when in doubt, wave away anything that conflicts with my nerd-rage hued worldview. Like the fact that persistent hunting has been shown in modern examples. I like how you ignored my point about the Tarahumara. The Kalahari bushmen also practice persistent hunting. I imagine either one of them could outrun a horse in a marathon. Also, on the horse marathons, they get breaks, and those breaks don’t count toward the total time. When the hunters of old were likely chasing horses, they were probably not allowed time to get checked by a vet, cooled off, fed and watered, and let go again. Not to mention the fact that these are horses bred for endurance, rather than the kind you would find in nature.
But hey, you aren’t exactly an impartial debater. You have an axe to grind and nobody or nothing is going to let you see reason, that might mean you have to feel bad about not exercising or whatever else you tell yourself.
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### Author:  [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2009, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763/659 "2009-11-13T23:20:27Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#):
>
> So do you dispute that human bodies are evolutionarily well-suited for a certain amount of physical activity, or are you going to assert that sitting on your ass eating potato chips is how our bodies are supposed to work? Because I, for one, have never and would never assert that all humans should be running marathons or whatever. But I would certainly assert that humans should not be sitting on their asses getting zero exercise. Sure, you can lose weight even if you sit on your ass getting zero exercise, but losing weight isn’t all you need to do to be a healthy person. (And FYI, losing weight isn’t all you need to do to control diabetes, either, and I do strongly exhort you to check out a book on the topic. I’m not going to tell you anything more because you clearly think that I’m full of shit and are gleefully poking sarcastic little holes in everything I say, but seriously, for your long-term health you should really learn more about your chronic disease.)
Come now, you should know by now that my positions in this thread are pretty limited and of the negating variety: I see a specific claim I believe to be false and I specifically dispute the truth of that specific claim.
“Evolutionarily well-suited” is kind of an odd phrase. After all, we’re “evolutionarily well-suited” to holding paintbrushes - but this is largely because paintbrushes were designed to conform to _us_, not because paintbrushes had any effect on our development.
I suspect that for the most part, running is the same way. Sure, the need to run would have prevented mutations that _impede_ running from really catching on, but it really seems unlikely to me that the running _drove_ the evolution. I’m doubtful of this not just because there’s no reason _to_ believe it, craptacular post-hoc rationalizations aside - but also because it raises the question, “when did we learn to run?”
As far as I know, no animal runs quite the same way that humans do. (Heck, most _humans_ don’t run the way marathoners do.) Even putting aside all the quatropeds, not even our closest relatives the apes and monkeys run on two legs, as far as I know, and of course the bipedal birds have completely different joints and musculature. Do _any_ other animals put weight on their heel?
It’s a chicken/egg problem. Many or most of the traits ascribed to a runner’s evolution rely on running the human way, rather than the greyhound way. But if these supposed “runner’s evolutionary traits” are _needed_ to run the human way, then protohumans who didn’t have them would have run in a different way that didn’t need them. And of course if we developed these traits prior to adopting a mode of running that takes advantage of them, then that means that running no more guided the evolution of these traits than paint brushes did our hand shape.
As for whether humans should or should not be sitting on their asses getting zero exercise: define “should”. Because isn’t that really, “should they do it [if they wish to achieve whatever their specific goals are, which will vary per person]?” Without know what a person specifically wants out of life, and what the speific outcome they can expect out of their life _without_ the additional exercise, how can we say whether they should do any particular amount or type of exercise or not?
I’m also a wee bit concerned about “should” statements because they may presume an objective set of priorities that may be implicity devaluing a person’s momentary state. For example, by some measures I _should_ never eat anything sweet again, _ever_. Because, in the long-term view, every sweet food contributes to fattiness, which in the long term view contributes to death by chinese water torture or various other health-related issues. And it’s easy to _say_ I should never eat sweet things again, _ever_ - but it’s only easy because in doing so you’re completely dismissing the value of short-term pleasure. And as a person who thinks that without a certain amount of pleasure in the present, life isn’t worth living, this kind of devaluation bothers me.
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### Author:  [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)
#### Post date: [November 13, 2009, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-people-get-so-fat/513763/660 "2009-11-13T23:26:27Z")
> [@Epimetheus](#):
>
> Or when in doubt, wave away anything that conflicts with my nerd-rage hued worldview. Like the fact that persistent hunting has been shown in modern examples. I like how you ignored my point about the Tarahumara. The Kalahari bushmen also practice persistent hunting. I imagine either one of them could outrun a horse in a marathon. Also, on the horse marathons, they get breaks, and those breaks don’t count toward the total time. When the hunters of old were likely chasing horses, they were probably not allowed time to get checked by a vet, cooled off, fed and watered, and let go again. Not to mention the fact that these are horses bred for endurance, rather than the kind you would find in nature.
I know you imagine that humans could outrun horses in marathons. You have a right lively imagination.
(And isn’t it disingenuous to compain about the horses being bred for it when your argument is that _humans_ were bred for it? Oh, right. Double standards are okay for you, because you’re _unbiased_.)
> [@Epimetheus](#):
>
> But hey, you aren’t exactly an impartial debater. You have an axe to grind and nobody or nothing is going to let you see reason, that might mean you have to feel bad about not exercising or whatever else you tell yourself.
The axe I have to grind is against _bullshit_. But then again, I’ve admitted to being heavy, so that must be my _only_ motivation in this debate. Because fatties think about nothing but defending their fat and dont’ care about truth. Not like _you_, who is completely impartial and has no axe to grind whatever. Heck, you don’t even have an opinion on the subject. You don’t exercise at all yourself. You’re just arguing this from _pure academic impartiality_.
(Remember kids, when argument from authority doesn’t work for you, try ad hominems. Eventually _something_ will work!)
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