You might be interested in my history of asthma Corona, I suffered seriously as a child (indeed almost died - I actually remember overhearing a doctor tell my parents this - something I think has been life-shaping for me - I have notoriously low risk-aversion). My asthma persisted into adulthood, but around the age of 30 I went on a ‘detoxifying’ programme, actually mainly in support of my first wife - but to my astonishment my life-long asthma simply disappeared in days (a second life-changing discovery).
I subsequently found that, in my case at least, asthma is ‘overdetermined’ (to use Freud’s concept) - ie. has multiple causes, but generally requires at least 2 or 3 to produce any symptoms.
But isn’t it a bit far-fetched to suggest that medical interventions over a few decades in relatively few places have significantly impacted Darwinian evolution?
No I just meant that more intrinsically weak ‘unfit’ specimens survive to adulthood because modern surgery, medicine eg antibiotics etc save them and they therefore have the possibility of reproducing, than did hitherto. If we had a 50% perinatal mortality rate we wouldn’t have the population we do now, for instance.
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Yes not in the least surprised. If the bodies defence mechanisms are pre occupied battling some other immune response, in some their systems simply cant cope. Auto immune diseases are rising in the west and somethings in our modern overfed lifestyles is causing it compared the the poorer areas regarding food, clean air etc.
Child proof bottles have a lot to answer for. Clearly anti-Darwinian.
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I’m sorry, they are adult proof child resistant caps 
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Doubly so when you want to get at US manufactured painkillers when hungover.
Pretty much all advances in health care prevent elimination of the less fit, and many improvements to technology likewise.
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I remember discussing the effect of caesarian delivery some years ago - modern use has made a measurable difference on human development:
It is also enabling other social and physiological changes such as obesity to be seen as normal, rather than harmful:
Absolutely!
People seen as thin are rarer and somehow viewed as strange. Look back at a few old photos and it was the norm.
Your comment made me pause for a moment.
When I walk down the high street of the nearest town, I’m well aware of many ‘larger’ individuals, including some who have the waisteline ‘apron’ hanging down. Yet among the people I know through work, village or other friends, I can only think of a small minority of obese individuals. There’s a disparity, but slim is definitely the norm for most that I know, with some distinctly slender, among both sexes. The obese individuals definitely stand out (pun not intended) as atypical.
Perhaps it just proves that I don’t know many ‘ordinary’ people.
You probably know people who are better-off, obesity is a frequent marker of poverty, paradoxically enough. A lot of obesity around here is due to the chemicals used in the vineyards.
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Sadly not the case in SE London, the proliferation of chicken shops and other fast food outlets makes the youngsters mostly obese. Even on the institute christmas lectures the kids are all on the large size.
Depends on the person’s viewpoint, what one person thinks as obese another won’t, if one is lucky enough to be skinny most others will look obese to them.
You have no way of knowing if they are or not and is just really a generalisation, aren’t you doing people a disservice by assuming they all eat unhealthy and from fast food outlets.
I spent a year in a school in the SW in the middle of the vines where there was a very high proportion of clinically obese children and the proportion was higher in the segpa and the ulis, both the obesity and the learning difficulties were, in the opinion of the nurse and other specialist people who dealt with them down to their and their parents’ exposure to particular chemicals in utero and thereafter. The children of unqualified vineworkers were most affected. There is a special school for slimming down these children in Aquitaine which takes them for up to a year, maybe more but certainly a year, so they can do schoolwork and lose weight in a medical set-up.
Sorry Vero my reply was aimed at Corona.
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To me, it seems that consumption of junk food is a problem caused by lack of education and less than ideal upbringing.
Fast food has always been more expensive than scratch cooking, and having grown up in a house with little money*, then had a number of years without much money myself, it’s hard to see why anyone would eat such food. When I was a teen, Wimpy and later Macdonald’s were the places the better off kids would go - you would never see kids from poor families there because we couldn’t afford it. I appreciate this is different from the US where fast food is as cheap as faeces.
*By little money, I mean that as kids we’d sometimes collect dumped Corona bottles with a deposit on so that our mum could buy food. When our own kids were small, roadkill was a good meat source and I would harvest fallen trees for heating fuel. In both situations dinner was quite often bread and soup. The issue is NOT economics ALONE because it’s always going to be cheaper to cook at home, and if you’re really poor then buying enough food to get fat will be a struggle.
If this were true, you would expect to see a clear relationship between levels of junk food consumption and places that lack universal education, or where households are strained by poverty, civil conflict, etc. I find no evidence of this.
On the other hand, places with multiple advertising channels into every home, heavily penetrated by multinational ultra-processed food companies, do seem to be clearly associated with junk food consumption.
Sorry yes you are right, but nowadays very often those go with lack of money or lack of money is a result of those, I was thinking better off not just in financial terms but in what Bourdieu calls cultural capital, so education upbringing etc.
“The issue is NOT economics ALONE because it’s always going to be cheaper to cook at home, and if you’re really poor then buying enough food to get fat will be a struggle.”
I’m not so sure about this, mainly because all the people saying oh but lovely healthy filling lentils overlook the fact that if you are not in a good situation you probably want quick easy comfort food and in our society that is likely to be high calorie low nutrient processed stuff.
Cultural capital is a big deal here. I came from a family who knew what it meant to manage on very little, and that gave me tools to cope and experience of what was possible thanks to a previous generation.
And this ties very closely to the first point. Not many will want to eat lentils, but knowing what you can eat quickly & easily for very low cost is really helpful. I grew up on the tomato soup that we were joking about last week - that and large amounts of bread, cheap cheese, and baked potatoes, and a kind of goulash that my mother made with the cheap ‘boiling ring’ sausage & potatoes that could be stretched to feed 2 adults & 2 hungry kids. None of it took a long time to prepare.
it’s not economics alone, because junk food is more expensive than a tin of soup and a loaf of bread, or a couple of jacket potatoes and a pack of butter. Perhaps there’s a fashion/marketing element involved too, affecting those unable to see through the images? Certainly the ability to afford junk food was a statement of wealth when I was a teen, and maybe it’s continued as a status symbol. It’s hard for me to tell because I don’t have a TV and adverts are virtually invisible as an information source to me.
