[smartkids]

It's interesting if you think about how easy is is to get food. The drives that cause us to eat probably evolved in the long period of human evolution where we had to work really hard, like every other animal, to find food. Hunger might cause stress, and rightly so. The search for food, for any animal, is always a top priority. But it's so ridiculously easy for people to feed themselves now. The search for food, driven by hunger, is "trivial". You could even eat just for the fun of eating. It's fun. It's also not very healthy. But how many fun things are also healthy? I digress.

Maybe someone in the UK can comment on what it was like during WWII when there was a severe shortage of food. I have heard some say people were actually quite healthy because they were not eating "too much" as it is so easy to do under normal conditions. I don't know. Maybe some from the UK can comment.

In sum, given that we are still animals with animal drives like hunger, finding food and eating is way too easy. Maybe our evolution has not caught up.

[keithpeter]

I can't find any solid references, but there was an improvement in health, but part of the reason could be that people who would previously have had a poor diet were 'rationed up' to a balanced and healthy one: everyone got protein and fresh veg.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/9728.php

PS: My Mum can still remember the first banana she saw, and getting fresh oranges (overseas sourced foods basically disappeared for 8 years)