Were Cave Dwellers Ever Fat?

In our mind’s eye, we see our ancient ancestors as they have
been depicted in paintings, stories, films, and scientific
recreations. Small, wiry, hairy figures surrounding a huge
beast, poised for the kill.

Do we know if that picture is really accurate?

We do know, from skeletal fragments that have survived, that
they were definitely smaller than present day human beings. We
can surmise that they were wiry from the lifestyle they pursued:
irregular availability of food and long hours of daily hunting.
We can assume that women started to gather plants, grasses,
fruits, and seeds to provide an alternate source of sustenance
to the men’s only intermittently successful hunting efforts.

We have only vague timelines on when tribes started to move out
of caves and into shelters they made themselves. We can only
guess about the invention of cooking pots, an enormous advance
from simply an open fire.

As the race became more domesticated, the variety of food
expanded and therefore the availability of something to eat
became more assured. Eventually, civilization sparked,
agriculture was born, and eating became a process of selection
and choice rather than mere consumption to stay alive. It was at
this juncture, we can posit, that individual’s weights started
to differentiate, depending upon personal choice, the wealth or
strength to obtain extras, or the physical demands of one’s
occupation.

What did our cavemen forbears bequeath as their legacy?

Underfed and overactive, they willed us a body that still thinks
we dwell in the primordial forest. Suddenly cut back on our
intake of food and the alert is sounded through the nervous
system and organs of our prehistoric physiology. “Famine coming,
famine coming” our bodies shriek and immediately our metabolism
slows to a crawl. The body attempts to hold onto its fat like a
Paleolithic hunter grasping his animal skin against the elements.

In the very architecture of our bodies: tail remnants, vestigial
organs, and a primitive metabolic system, we carry the seeds of
our own weight difficulties.

To work with our bodies, rather than constantly fight them, we
need to recreate the world in which our bodies developed. While
we cannot participate in a primeval hunt, we can repeatedly,
over a long period of time, consume only limited calories so
that our bodies don’t have to worry about getting enough food,
but process the little they do get rapidly and efficiently.

Our little friends, the white rats in the laboratory mazes, have
proven over and over again, that consistent undereating is the
pathway to good health and longevity.

For all they did for mankind in the dawn of history, the cave
dwellers deserve our thanks and our respect as do the bodies
they left as their testimony.

What ungrateful abuse we heap on them when we allow ourselves to
grow flabby and fat, desecrating their gift and nullifying their
efforts.

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