pessimistic conclusion: Unlike a climatic storm that is over in a few hours or days,
the obesity‘storm’has and will continue to gain momentum and persist with a
costly increase in deleterious health consequences. However, evolutionary insights
can be employed to mediate the impact of‘storm damage.’The next section
examines the influences of these evolutionary biomarkers on eating behaviors and
perceptions of food intake in the current obesogenic environment.
Food Salience, Eating Behaviors, Consumption
Compulsion, and Cognitive Dissociation
Humans are keen observers because vision is our primary sense for interacting with
the physical and social environment (Barnes, et al. 2013 ; Vorobyev 2004 ). Although
all sensory modalities—audition, somatic sensation, olfaction, and gustation—are
involved with appetite and eating, our current environment is characterized by the
omnipresence of visual food cues of both real food and graphic depictions of foods
that influence food cravings, food choices, and consumption volume (Blechert et al.
2014 ; Power and Schulkin 2009 ; Rolls and Barnett 2000 ;Wansink 2010 ). These
graphic depictions appear on food packages, restaurant menus and marquees, clothing,
gas pumps, billboards, magazines, books and newspapers, signs and posters, food
truck and bus wraps, smart phones and computers. An increasing body of experi-
mental and observational data in neuroscience, cognitive and evolutionary psychol-
ogy, medicine, consumer behavior, and anthropology supports the adage that‘We eat
first with our eyes’(Blechert et al. 2014 ; Wansink 2010 ). Unfortunately, our eyes
deceive us as to the quantity of food we eat, and the food industry deceives us
regarding food ingredients, portion sizes, and caloric density (Hermanussen et al.
2008 , 2012 ; Nestle 2002 ; Tooze et al. 2004 )asshowninFig.10.1.
Paradoxically, people demonstrate low accuracy in monitoring food consumption
in what Wansink refers to as‘mindless eating’(Wansink 2010 ). Reconstructions of
paleo-lifeways suggest that after attention was paid to acquiring food, there may have
been little adaptive value in paying attention to every morsel consumed (Eaton et al.
1999 ; Konner and Eaton 2010 ). Eating what was available was the norm and still is.
However, this behavioral adaptation to periodic food deficits is now operating in an
environment of continual food surfeits of delicious, low-bulk, high-energy-dense
foods (Armelogos 2010 , 2014 ;Lieberman 2006 , 2008 ; Power and Schulkin 2009 ).
Furthermore, portion size has a profound influence on how much people eat and
portion sizes have been getting bigger in the last three decades (Nestle 2002 ; Rolls
2003 ; Wansink 2010 ). In classic popcorn studies, the size of the container of
popcorn is the primary determining factor of the amount consumed (Wansink and
Park 2001 ). In one study, the researchers provided moviegoers with medium- and
large-size containers of 5-day-old popcorn. Those people who received the medium
containers consumed 61.1 g., while those eating from the large containers ate
93.5 g. or 53% more, an additional 173 calories and 21 dips into the container
200 L.S. Lieberman