AHS12 J. Stanton  — What Is Hunger, and Why Are We Hungry?
Channel: AncestryFoundation
Date: 2013-01-24

J. Stanton, B.A. presenting at the 2nd Annual Ancestral Health Symposium 2012 (AHS12).

Hunger is a curiously neglected subject. People aren't obese because they enjoy being obese, and diets don't fail because people dislike being slim and healthy. Diets fail because hunger overrides our other motivations.

This presentation will enumerate the clinically measurable, provably distinct mental and physical processes which interact to produce hunger, including a brief exploration of the relevant research; it will explain each process in terms of its survival value and evolutionary history; and it will discuss some evolutionarily discordant behaviors and dietary choices by which the processes of hunger are disrupted. It will conclude by proposing some techniques by which we can bring our behaviors and choices closer to evolutionary concordance, and by proposing avenues for further investigation of hunger.