Why self-control fail to regulate appetite: The clash between human-made environment and age-old evolutionary behavioral systems

The number of overweight individuals in the Western world is rapidly increasing with distastrous consequences for health and human functioning. Psychological theories emphasize the role of failing self-control to explain why few people are able to resist the temptation of food in modern society - exemplified in failure to adhere to healthy diet. However, these theories cannot explain why failure to regulate appetite has increased at such rapid pace in the past decades. Moreover, the strong focus on self-control may have obscured the role of other factors that seem more relevant for explaining the regulation of human appetite. This proposal examines the hypothesis that under normal conditions appetite is regulated by a system that is able to alternate functional food-intake with food-intake for hedonistic motives, but that this system is prone to breakdown under extreme social of physical conditions such as abundance of (prefab) food or high distress related to rapid individual/societal changes (e.g., preference for high-caloric comfort food under high distress). To that purpose, an expert-meeting will be organized, bringing together experts in behavioral theories of appetite in humans and other mammals, as well as experts of cultural studies to examine under which conditions human may or may not be able to regulate appetite and which factors explain breakdown of a system that is designed for normal conditons but not able to cope with the conditons imposed by modern society. The ultimate aim of the expert-meeting is to prepare a research grant to be submitted in the Evolution & Behavior Program. In addition, results of the expert-meeting will be published in an edited volume. This proposal relates to one of the main areas of the Evolution & Behavior Program, namely the adaptive nature of human behavior. It contributes to the main goals of the program as it highlights the exchange of knowledge between disciplines relevant for understanding appetite (especially biology and psychology) and promotes an evolutionary perspective on an issue that has until now been dominated by psychology as far as human appetite is concerned.