[agumonkey]

I think so. "Alert" is probably the proper idea, when you're hungry but cannot eat, your brain will seek satisfaction elsewhere, and all this mental energy can be channeled into another activity (a bit like how people get very very active for a few days when they stop smoking cigarettes)

[bear141]

I have a theory that our natural state is “hungry”. We haven’t evolved past a time where getting enough food to be “full” would be a pretty rare occurrence. Everyone’s obsession with being perfectly comfortable at all times is why such an incredible amount of people die of obesity and its comorbitities every year in America.

[agumonkey]

Yeah I think so too. We were not made for comfort (especially not that amount, not that often), there needs to be a cycle between getting satisfaction and waiting/working for it.

[dontlaugh]

Plenty of people lived entire lives without being hungry most of the time, but also without obesity being common.

[bear141]

My theory is fairly broad and vague, but your comment has taken those two things to an extreme.

[dontlaugh]

I'm just pointing out that your theory is trivially disproven.

An excess of comfort is probably still bad, but I doubt it's the main cause of obesity.

[agumonkey]

It all hinges on how we define comfort. A comfy villager 500 years ago, with fruits and meat nearby was probably never really hungry, but, I'd argue:

- never the amount of processed calories at hand - had to consume these calories on a regular basis.. no vehicles, no powered tools except the occasional mill, most things required walking of lifting

[amanaplanacanal]

Obesity in the US didn’t really start taking off until the 1970s. There are plenty of people still alive from the before times. I believe that studies have been done, and people aren’t generally less active now than they were then.