According to Deirdre Barrett, a clinical professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School, our primal urges have contributed to creating the obesity epidemic, social isolation, poor risk-assessment tendencies and sex addiction. She discusses the link between our impulses and how it relates to living in the modern world.

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APRIL 4, 2010 12:02 PM

The evolutionary impulses that allowed our ancestors to survive on the Savannah are sabotaging us in the modern world, finds groundbreaking new research.

According to Deirdre Barrett, a clinical professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School, our lingering primal urges have helped give rise to the obesity epidemic, social isolation, poor risk-assessment tendencies and sex addiction, among countless other things. All because our biology hasn’t caught up to the way we live.

“We still have Stone-Age brains inside contemporarily clothed bodies,” says Barrett, author of the new book Supernormal Stimuli. “So we can’t really trust our instincts; we need to trust our intellects.”

The problem, of course, is that most of us don’t. And according to Barrett’s studies, it’s because we’re governed by the same knee-jerk behaviour as so-called “dumb animals.”

Just as a songbird has been shown to prefer fake eggs over its own real ones, simply because the phonies offer an exaggerated version of reality — brighter colours, embellished markings, larger in size — so, too, are humans duped by their own instincts.

“When we see animals trying to mate with a little cardboard cylinder just because it has the right stripes on the side, it looks really silly to us,” says Barrett. “But magazine pornography isn’t any less unrealistic a depiction of a real woman.”

Because most big genetic changes take 10,000 years or more to pass, she says humans are still coded to respond to their environment in very primitive ways. Once-scarce fat, salt and sugar, for instance, is still pursued today, to the point of excess, despite the fact it’s become widely available.

“Our genes haven’t had time to stop craving those things and start craving green, leafy vegetables, which were around us all the time on the Savannah and didn’t need to be prioritized,” says Barrett.

Our social instincts are as easily fooled — and again, to our detriment — by TV’s exaggerated versions of things we naturally seek out.

“We have very attractive actors smiling at us, and laugh tracks playing, and funny quips coming faster than they ever could in real life,” says Barrett. “All the things that are meant to pull us into a social interaction but, in fact, are pulling us toward a television set.”

Even our ability to detect threats is affected, with Barrett noting people are likelier to gasp at a horror movie or picture of a giant gorilla than news of global warming, which wasn’t an obvious danger to our ancestors.

Because evolution won’t ever catch up to our changing times, she says the best we can do is to recognize what’s happening and try to behave logically.

“We have the tools to handle this, with our superior intellect and brain power,” says Barrett. “The problem is that we act reflexively most of the time.”

We all know that physical activity is important to good health and well-being. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ recommends 150 minutes of aerobic activity throughout the week. David Conroy, associate professor of kinesiology and human development and family studies, along with Shawna Doerksen, assistant professor of recreation, park and tourism management, Amanda Hyde, graduate student in kinesiology, and Nuno Ribeiro, graduate in recreation, park and tourism management, studied 200 college students to determine the relationship between physical activity and level of unintentional activity. Their results were published in the April issue of Annals of Behavioral Medicine.

ScienceDaily (Apr. 3, 2010) — Unintentional physical activity may be influenced by non-conscious attitudes, noted David Conroy, associate professor of kinesiology and human development and family studies. The challenge of encouraging more activity can be met by understanding the motivation behind both deliberate exercise and inherent behaviors.

“If you aren’t in the habit of being physically active, you can run out of energy trying to force yourself to do it everyday,” said Conroy. “But if you can make physical activity habitual, being active becomes a lot easier.”

Efforts to increase physical activity are at the forefront of public health research because the benefits of a healthy lifestyle go far beyond physical and mental well-being. However, the majority of these efforts focus on explicit motivation — external factors that lead to a change in behavior. Explicit motivation can include following the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ recommendation for 150 minutes of aerobic activity throughout the week, or making plans with a friend to start a weight-loss program.

But explicit motivational processes are often unsuccessful in causing changes that people can easily maintain long-term.

Conroy, along with Shawna Doerksen, assistant professor of recreation, park and tourism management; Amanda Hyde, graduate student in kinesiology; and Nuno Ribeiro, graduate in recreation, park and tourism management, examined 200 college students for a connection between physical activity and level of unintentional activity.

“It wasn’t the overall level of activity we focused on, it was specifically the unintentional activity — those little things that you don’t even think about that help you burn those extra few calories,” said Conroy.

Their results, published in the April issue of Annals of Behavioral Medicine, show a positive correlation between individuals who have a positive attitude about physical activity and those who performed more unintentional physical activity, such as climbing stairs instead of waiting for the elevator, or walking further to the store because of parking in the first available spot rather than searching for a closer space.

The researchers measured the students’ unexpressed attitudes towards exercise with a common psychological test that uses words or pictures to trigger a person’s automatic response. The computer-based test requires categorization of a stimulus, in this case a type of physical activity, with words that are either “good” or “bad.” The faster a person associates a pairing as either good or bad, the more strongly they connect those two things in their memory.

Conroy and Doerksen also used questionnaires to determine the amount of physical activity the students predicted they would get during the week. The amount varied, depending on how active students were in their social group or the outcomes they expected from physical activity.

The researchers fit each student with a pedometer to calculate the total activity he or she experienced during one week. The amount of unintentional activity is estimated by adjusting total activity scores to account for people’s intentions to be active.

“We’re trying to follow this up now by looking at a broader range of populations,” said Conroy. There are major differences in what motivates young adults, mid-life adults or parents, and older adults who may have physical limitations, he noted.

The researchers are now exploring whether there are ways to promote or encourage physical activity without a person knowing it.

Making better decisions about eating may increase because of the new health bill President Barack Obama signed into law recently. It requires that restaurant chains post calorie counts for all the food items they sell. “Dining out no longer has to be a nutritional guessing game,” said Margo G. Wootan, director of nutrition policy with the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit health-advocacy group based in Washington. Will this change actually affect consumers’ choices of foods? Well, the hope is that it will. Cathy Nonas, director of physical activity and nutrition for the health department in New York City, a pioneer in adopting menu labeling and Ron Shaich, co-founder and chief executive of Panera Bread Co. , believe that this type of action against obesity that can make a difference. Researchers from Tufts University looked at the validity and truth behind the number of calories that restaurants were reporting. Deborah Dowdell, president of the New Jersey Restaurant Association is against this posting of nutritional information and believes there are better ways to reduce the obesity epidemic. On the other hand, others have embraced and welcomed the new information, such as Andy Hayler, a U.K.-based food critic who writes about restaurants world-wide.

By JEAN SPENCER and SHIRLEY S. WANG

Wall Street Journal

3/24/10

Chowing down on calorie-laden food at chain restaurants is going to become more of a guilt trip.

The health bill President Barack Obama signed into law Tuesday requires that restaurant chains post calorie counts for all the food items they sell. The law covers any chain with at least 20 outlets, amounting to more than 200,000 restaurants nationwide.

“Dining out no longer has to be a nutritional guessing game,” said Margo G. Wootan, director of nutrition policy with the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit health-advocacy group based in Washington. “People could cut hundreds, thousands, of calories from their diet.”

Calorie counts must be listed on menus, menu boards, drive-through displays and vending machines under the law. Additional information—such as sodium levels, carbohydrates and saturated fats—must be available on request. Temporary specials and custom orders are exempted.

A growing number of state, county and local regulations already require similar disclosures, and those rules will be superceded by the federal law.

There has been debate about whether such menu labeling actually affects consumers’ behavior. Some recent studies have found that such labeling leads to healthier eating: The New York City health department examined the behavior of 12,000 customers of 13 chain restaurants in 275 locations in the city before and after menu labeling was implemented in the city in 2008.

Preliminary results show that one in six fast-food customers report using the calorie-count information. Consumers who said they used the information bought items with 106 fewer calories compared with those who didn’t see or use the information.

Separate studies have shown weak or inconsistent effects of menu labeling on consumer behavior, according to a 2008 review of the literature published in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity.

“Calorie posting in and of itself is not going to change obesity per se, but it’s all of these kinds of layering opportunities that we’re doing for public health all across the country that are going to make the difference,” said Cathy Nonas, director of physical activity and nutrition for the health department in New York City, a pioneer in adopting menu labeling.

The National Center for Health Statistics reported in January that 34% of Americans age 20 and older were obese in 2007-08.

The restaurant industry is required to come up with a labeling proposal in one year, but the bill leaves it to Food and Drug Administration officials to determine specific regulations, including the printing fonts and their sizes to be used in calorie displays. Ms. Wootan said it could take three to four years before diners see the new information in restaurants.

One concern about the rules is accuracy. Researchers from Tufts University who looked into caloric disclosure from 29 quick-serve and sit-down restaurants found that restaurants under-reported calories by an average of 18%.

Some restaurant owners and groups have supported labeling regulations, in part because they don’t think such disclosures deter patrons from ordering what they want.

“This isn’t telling them what to eat or playing nutritional police—it’s about making nutritional information available,” said Ron Shaich, co-founder and chief executive of Panera Bread Co., said in an interview. The company said two weeks ago it would voluntarily add calorie information on menu boards at each of its 1,380 bakery-cafes nationwide by the end of 2010.

The National Restaurant Association said it supported the move to help health-conscious consumers track nutritional facts, and the law also solved the problem of restaurants having to deal with differing menu regulations around the country.

“This legislation will replace a growing patchwork of varying state and local regulations with one consistent national standard that helps consumers make choices that are best for themselves and their families,” the restaurant industry group said in a statement.

Darden Restaurants, which operates 1,800 Olive Garden, Red Lobster and Longhorn Steakhouse and other outlets, said the nationwide requirements will simplify its menu labeling. Only 130 of its restaurants currently are required to label menus, a spokesman said. Some fast food chains, including Burger King, also support the federal law.

But some restaurant owners aren’t so sanguine. Deborah Dowdell, president of the New Jersey Restaurant Association, which represents 23,000 food and beverage shops, said labeling increases menu costs for restaurants is inaccurate and doesn’t solve the nation’s obesity trend.

“If our goal is to curtail the trend of obesity, there are much more effective ways that can be implemented to accomplish that goal,” Ms. Dowdell said, suggesting exercise education as one example.

Some restaurant patrons welcomed the news.Andy Hayler, a U.K.-based food critic who writes about restaurants world-wide, said keeping track of calories was more difficult away from home. “It may not be obvious that something like blue cheese has twice as many calories as other cheeses,” said Mr. Hayler, who often eats out five times per week.