IndexWork hard or work hardEpigeneticsParsimonious hypothesisWhen in doubt, accumulate fatDiabetes: a downside of human evolutionEvolution of the immune systemConclusionThe 1990s, an era where everywhere I looked children were playing; wandering the streets, riding bikes and playing kickball in side yards. These days seem to have faded. The 2000s are considered the age of technology. Instead of seeing children playing tag or hide and seek. The kids were enchanted by catching video games like Modern Warfare or Halo. It's sad to see America become an icon of laziness. The lack of activity in the community has resulted in an epidemic called obesity. Sluggishness is a broad term used to describe obesity, however adiposity cannot be described with one single term. This topic has been studied for years with attempts to pinpoint a cause. “A person is traditionally considered obese if they are more than 20% above their ideal weight. This ideal weight must take into account the person's height, age, sex and build” (Definition of obese, 2016). In today's world, obesity controls society and isn't slowing down anytime soon. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The obesity epidemic caused by a variety of factors including lack of exercise, poor diet, and evolution. Two of these three factors are common determinants in the interpretation of obesity. However, evolution is one of the major determinants in the context of obesity. This disease has progressively increased over time; the obesity trend began as early as the 1970s. Coinciding with the spread of this epidemic, the key elements that correspond to obesity are allele frequencies and phenotypes. Given the information provided by evolution, obesity could end once and for all. Work hard or work hard Evolution is the process of changing or improving from previous forms, also known as Darwinism. This source was the beginning of America's current obesity epidemic. However, obesity is linked to environmental changes; many studies have shown a correlation between obesity and genetics. This correlation was based on the idea that some populations were at greater risk for metabolic conditions and obesity, while other communities included immunity. Obesity trend numbers are unstable in many communities, however they include an idea of fitness. Fitness levels play a role in a community's evolution of body fat levels. A highly active environment such as a farm or manual labor is more likely to include high metabolic rates and low body fat percentages. This is due to a greater amount of cellular energy released during a working day. In addition to a greater work ethic, a comparison is made to an era before the advent of heavy machinery. Typically, before machines performed manual labor, humans performed all the tasks necessary for survival. These include growing food, caring for livestock, and performing relevant tasks to ensure a healthy and stable home life. These tasks were not as simple as they seem. Many diaries include the thoughts of men who work from morning to sunset. The increased amount of physical labor has had many adaptations to the human body. For survival, a greater amount of glucose was required, recovered mainly from the accumulation of fat. In addition, the calories received during meals comeused suddenly due to the considerable amount of work performed inside and outside the body. Today, machines have taken over society and continue to steal jobs from humans. Society has made a drastic change in the human work ethic and the jobs needed to be completed using the human hand. These changes caused the human body to adapt to a reduced amount of daily calorie expenditure. Compared to before machinery, caloric and energy expenditure was greater than today. These environmental and mechanical advances have led the human body to move towards a relaxed state when thinking about agricultural and industrial work. As previously stated, the body relies on a constant source of glucose to function, however, given the circumstances of reduced calorie expenditure, the body no longer needs as much energy as in previous decades. This lack of spending is another part of fat accumulation that leads to a greater chance of obesity. These statements conclude the idea of a metabolism that adapts through changing an environment also known as epigenetics. Epigenetics Epigenetics is a term used to describe an impression that alters genetic expression without altering the DNA sequence (Herrera, 2011). This term suggests that environmental factors during crucial stages of development can cause obesity. Adolescents shaped by environmental factors such as poor nutritional exposure and lifestyle choices managed by parents. Given the case where a child receives poor nutrition during an important growth phase of life, a change in genetic expression may occur, allowing the child to conform to their environmental factors. Altering the expression of a gene allows a new function to arise. These changes can lead to harm later in life, including increased risk of obesity, metabolic conditions and cardiovascular disease. Altering genetic expressions creates an increased risk of harmful diseases due to the modification. Nutritional factors are few but far from all components that can contribute to obesity, for example lifestyle habits are partly responsible for unhealthy tendencies. Lifestyle habits such as regular exercise can have a positive impact on epigenetics. Individuals may have a predisposition to obesity, however genetic expression can alter early in life through positive habits. Habits include regular exercise and an increasing amount of healthy eating. These two components allow the delivery of exosomes made up of vitamin B6 and B12, which help in the regulation of metabolism. Vitamin deficiencies can result in medical conditions, however, they describe genetic expression in younger children and adolescents. To regulate poor nutrition and lack of exercise, epigenetics regulates gene expression used to turn genes on and off. This system is one way the human body competes for survival during a time of stress. Savings Hypothesis In a previous section, calorie expenditure described a part of epigenetics and the adaptation of the human work ethic. History shows a change in nutritional advances and the availability of healthy foods. Evolutionary changes occurred due to the fact that our ancestors supported a positive genetic alteration for energy storage (Sellayah, 2014). Given the environment of our ancestors, these individuals relied on an adequate amount of energy to perform a greater amount of work. Because of the advancement of their industrywork and the exhausting hours spent in manual labor, it is easy to understand why a greater amount of energy capacity was needed. On the other hand, manual labor was not the only factor used to increase the amount of energy storage, but also the lack of availability of food or, in some environments, famine. Famine is the lack of availability of food, which is the driving factor behind the savings hypothesis. This argument refers to a significant amount of genetic drift due to lack of predation forces. Lack of opportunities to recover nutrients leads to increased deaths. These events forced people to search for food, keeping in mind that food can sustain an individual due to scarcity of nutrition. Continuing, the lack of food led to an adaptation of greater energy storage that allowed survival. The previous years of famine and hard work show how humans have evolved to the environmental changes around them. The lack of food sources has caused an increase in energy storage; however, this is not the case in current years. Factors such as fast food chains are encouraging the advancement of obesity. These companies have sprung up around the world creating an easy-to-access, cheap, and unhealthy food variant for all consumers. Increased access to unhealthy foods helps reduce the perceived barrier that prevents individuals from receiving food. Previous eras required extra work to obtain a simple meal, such as hunting or fishing by men. Compared to today, if an individual has a bicycle, puts gas in a vehicle, or is within walking distance of a fast food chain, he or she can get a meal for a dollar. Evolution has shown that energy storage is greater, however there is a drawback which includes a decrease in calorie expenditure. Today, individuals have access to food, compared to the past when famine could strike at any time. This is a great example of evolution based on social changes. Society contributes significantly to human evolution. Given the availability of a cooked meal, individuals no longer gather meals in forested areas. Meals before the fast food era included wild animals without any modification. Today our food has changes like hormones. Food intake is increased, as is portion size, calories elevated, and most importantly, these meals do not leave an individual broke (Nielson, 2003). This leaves the question in mind; How does this imply evolution? The earlier use of gathering and hunting for food was a healthful activity to obtain nutrients such as proteins and carbohydrates in berries and nuts. The human body began to naturally digest many natural products without the interaction of other changes. Due to the availability of unhealthy foods containing high traces of saturated fats, our bodies have changed to store more fat. Fast foods are convenient, however, they induce an unhealthy lifestyle which can lead to unwanted results. If there is any doubt, American obesity began due to selection pressures resulting from food scarcity. However, the famine may have caused the human body to adapt to nutrient-rich foods and the ability to eat continuously after consuming a moderate amount of food. The lack of food in previous years could have a large impact on the American lifestyle, which has resulted in an increase in time spent sitting and lack of exercise. In addition to lack of exercise, nutrients absorbed into the body can move from the internal organs and.
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