Obesity during human history has always been an indicator of power and wealth. During the Neolithic period figurines excavated across Europe of women with over developed thighs and protruding abdomens, were an indicator of the wealth of a nomadic community. It is no accident humans across time and geography equated power and wealth with obesity. Nothing in an era of feast and famine highlights personal security more than the amount of adipose tissue accumulated by individuals within a community.
Humans that were able to store fat, in a nomadic community that lived on its wits in a hostile every changing environment, prospered. It is no accident when humans gave up their nomadic lifestyle for a sedentary one, obesity became a male hallmark of power and wealth.
Women who were able to store excess food as fat in a nomadic culture had a greater chance of bearing children. Children were the key to the survival of the clan. No wonder Neolithic societies worshipped obese women. In sedentary communities, power became entrenched within a male hierarchy. Although powerful women existed they were an exception to the rule. The emerging male ruling classes wealth was highlighted by their ability to feed their families during the regular famines that ravaged sedentary communities that depended on agriculture and warfare to survive.
In the literary accounts of the 19th century workers struggles that led to the revolutionary upheavals of the 20th century, the men that exercised power were almost always depicted as ponderous self-satisfied figures that were barely able to move.
In the 21st century, the role of obesity in society has turned full circle. Obesity in the developed world has become the stigmata of the poor and powerless. Only those with an income beyond their day to day needs have the capacity to buy non-processed food and have the time and inclination to overcome the limitations set by a sedentary lifestyle. Obviously there are always exceptions to the rule but a good guide to the health and wealth of a suburb within a city is by using your eyes.
The greater the extent of obesity in a particular community, the greater its dependence on processed food. The industrialisation of food production and the outsourcing of meal preparation to fast food outlets has created the social and cultural conditions that make obesity both an individual and community challenge. Human DNA that evolved over tens of thousands of years of feast and famine has been overwhelmed by the industrialisation of food production and the outsourcing of meal preparation to a rapidly expanding corporate dominated food network that is designed to maximise shareholder profits at the expense of both the individual and the community as a whole. It’s time this challenge was acknowledged and met head on.
Dr. Joseph Toscano