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Food insecurity as a cause of adiposity: evolutionary and mechanistic hypotheses

Lookup NU author(s): Professor Melissa BatesonORCiD, Gillian Pepper

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).


Abstract

© 2023 The Authors. Food insecurity (FI) is associated with obesity among women in high-income countries. This seemingly paradoxical association can be explained by the insurance hypothesis, which states that humans possess evolved mechanisms that increase fat storage to buffer against energy shortfall when access to food is unpredictable. The evolutionary logic underlying the insurance hypothesis is well established and experiments on animals confirm that exposure to unpredictable food causes weight gain, but the mechanisms involved are less clear. Drawing on data from humans and other vertebrates, we review a suite of behavioural and physiological mechanisms that could increase fat storage under FI. FI causes short-term hyperphagia, but evidence that it is associated with increased total energy intake is lacking. Experiments on animals suggest that unpredictable food causes increases in retained metabolizable energy and reductions in energy expenditure sufficient to fuel weight gain in the absence of increased food intake. Reducing energy expenditure by diverting energy from somatic maintenance into fat stores should improve short-term survival under FI, but the trade-offs potentially include increased disease risk and accelerated ageing. We conclude that exposure to FI plausibly causes increased adiposity, poor health and shorter lifespan. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'Causes of obesity: theories, conjectures and evidence (Part II)'.


Publication metadata

Author(s): Bateson M, Pepper GV

Publication type: Review

Publication status: Published

Journal: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Year: 2023

Volume: 378

Issue: 1888

Print publication date: 23/10/2023

Online publication date: 04/09/2023

Acceptance date: 27/07/2023

ISSN (print): 0962-8436

ISSN (electronic): 1471-2970

Publisher: Royal Society Publishing

URL: https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2022.0228

DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2022.0228

PubMed id: 37661744

Data Access Statement: This article has no additional data.


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