Pinel J P, Assanand S, Lehman D R
Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
Am Psychol. 2000 Oct;55(10):1105-16. doi: 10.1037//0003-066x.55.10.1105.
Humans and other warm-blooded animals living with continuous access to a variety of good-tasting foods tend to eat too much and suffer ill health as a result--a finding that is incompatible with the widely held view that hunger and eating are compensatory processes that function to maintain the body's energy resources at a set point. The authors argue that because of the scarcity and unpredictability of food in nature, humans and other animals have evolved to eat to their physiological limits when food is readily available, so that excess energy can be stored in the body as a buffer against future food shortages. The discrepancy between the environment in which the hunger and eating system evolved and the food-replete environments in which many people now live has led to the current problem of overconsumption existing in many countries. This evolutionary perspective has implications for understanding the etiology of anorexia nervosa.
人类和其他恒温动物如果能持续获取各种美味食物，往往会吃得过多，进而导致健康问题。这一发现与一种广泛持有的观点相悖，该观点认为饥饿和进食是补偿性过程，其作用是将身体的能量资源维持在一个设定点。作者认为，由于自然界中食物的稀缺性和不可预测性，人类和其他动物已经进化到在食物容易获得时吃到生理极限，以便多余的能量可以储存在体内，作为应对未来食物短缺的缓冲。饥饿和进食系统进化所处的环境与许多人现在生活的食物丰富的环境之间的差异，导致了许多国家目前存在的过度消费问题。这种进化观点对于理解神经性厌食症的病因具有启示意义。
