The Evolutionary Biology of Human Body Fatness: Thrift and Control / Edition 1

The Evolutionary Biology of Human Body Fatness: Thrift and Control / Edition 1

by Jonathan C. K. Wells
ISBN-10:
0521884209
ISBN-13:
9780521884204
Pub. Date:
11/26/2009
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
ISBN-10:
0521884209
ISBN-13:
9780521884204
Pub. Date:
11/26/2009
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
The Evolutionary Biology of Human Body Fatness: Thrift and Control / Edition 1

The Evolutionary Biology of Human Body Fatness: Thrift and Control / Edition 1

by Jonathan C. K. Wells
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Overview

This comprehensive synthesis of current medical and evolutionary literature addresses key questions about the role body fat plays in human biology. It explores how body energy stores are regulated, how they develop over the life-course, what biological functions they serve, and how they may have evolved. There is now substantial evidence that human adiposity is not merely a buffer against the threat of starvation, but is also a resource for meeting the energy costs of growth, reproduction and immune function. As such it may be considered as important in our species evolution as other traits such as bipedalism, large brains, and long life spans and developmental periods. Indeed, adiposity is integrally linked with these other traits, and with our capacity to colonise and inhabit diverse ecosystems. It is because human metabolism is so sensitive to environmental cues that manipulative economic forces are now generating the current obesity epidemic.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780521884204
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication date: 11/26/2009
Series: Cambridge Studies in Biological and Evolutionary Anthropology , #58
Pages: 394
Product dimensions: 6.20(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Jonathan C. K. Wells is a Reader in Pediatric Nutrition at the University College London (UCL) Institute of Child Health. He conducts research on pediatric energetics and body composition, using anthropological and evolutionary approaches to inform biological understanding.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction; 2. Human fatness in broad context; 3. The proximate causes of fat deposition; 4. The ontogenetic development of adiposity; 5. The life-course induction of adiposity; 6. The fitness value of fat; 7. The evolutionary biology of adipose tissue; 8. Adiposity in hominid evolution; 9. Adiposity in human evolution; 10. The evolution of obesity.
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