The Bare Body Freedom Movement via Change.org

[Greenbare Woods]

We are living through the first time in all of human history where people suffer from too much food, and too little exercise. For the past million years food was produced or gathered only by expenditure of a great deal of human labor. It was expensive.  Famine was always a worry. The medieval cold times caused global famines that resulted in death of around 1/4 of all Europeans. The immediate cause of death was some illness or other but they were dying because they were half starved.  Even in "good" times like the Roman Empire their slaves suffered from a chronic lack of food. And now, for the first time ever, our "problem" is obesity.  Our bodies evolved to store any extra food we manage to obtain, but now we have machines cultivating and distributing our crops. The extra cost of "supersize me" is trivial for much of our population.

And exercise?  That's become a fancy gym rather than survival. People who hunted or farmed their own food had a cost of body energy to obtain more.  Now we sit at desks and ride in motor vehicles rather than working and walking.  Rather than complaining we ought to be thankful for the abundance our science has created for us. Having plenty of food is a lot more important than what food we have.  Being able to turn away any food because we don't like that kind is an unimaginable luxury that a million years of our ancestors couldn't even dream of.

We are designed to retain and store any extra food we get.  Many people end up eating more than we need, especially when we don't have to do actual work all day. And who can say that war or tech failure will never bring another famine that makes them the survivors.  Often the large people are more healthy, and the wolves are always prowling around just out of sight.

[jbeegoode]

All true, but I'm thinking over simplified.

We have lots of structures in our bodies left over from hunter gatherers. Then, we had farming going on, which provided nutrition in abundance. The social order and greed kept people starving and ill nourished, as it does today in much of the world. Science provided machines toward abundance. Diversity was increased  by the Booker T's of the world, but these days, it has gone too far and is out of touch with the natural real food system. For example, we began to eat more grain along the way and depend on it, then we began to eat too much of it and not enough of the other goodness that we need.

Personally, I'm working at creating more exertion and focus on food in my life. Just tweaking the old ways, not throwing the babies out with the bath water. Growing it in good soil, taking time to create nutritious and fun eating, doing it right. SO far, It is of great benefit. I'm getting noticeably younger and healthier from my former self.

Yea, in my life, I have had access to better education and food and unimaginable luxuries than most of the great royalty of history. I have airconditioning, diverse food, amazing transportation. I've been fat and happy, but I have noticed a price for this relatively sudden change in historical human lifestyle. There is a balance of our nature and nature and these advantages that needs to be found.
Jbee

[nuduke]

Picking up Bob's points, it is sobering that civilisation has proceeded at a far faster rate than evolution such that we are still at core in metabolism and structure the same hunter gatherers and bare subsistence farmers that we were 100,000 to 50.000 years ago.  Our current obese, ill exercised frames are, as Bob indicates, suffering the side effects of better agronomy, leisure and technological advances.  If you look at our lives from an odd angle you sort of conclude that we live to make ourselves ill and live too long so that the latter part of our lives has a high chance of being lived in suffering and decline.  What would n extra terrestrial conclude from observing us?  Were we sensible or stupid to become the masters of our planet.

Mind you, 100.000 years ago life was probably pretty nasty brutish and short and spent in hard labour and danger of disease injury, sepsis and wild animals.
Maybe we are better off today?
Cheery subject eh?
John

[BlueTrain]

"and live too long"

How long should we live for it to be about right, then?

[nuduke]

The length is determined by the ability to exist in good health, mental well being and sufficient physical strength for a comfortable life (however you define that!).  My definition of too long is years spent enfeebled and incapable, in disability and dementia.  Even 400 years ago Shakespeare recognised this problem of the dysfunctional imprisonment of old age:
"Last scene of all
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."

As you like it A2 Sc7
John

[BlueTrain]

It's that way for some, to be sure, but it certainly isn't for others. My wife's family is long-lived, at least on her mother's side. Her mother lived to be 97 and we were disappointed that she didn't make it to 100, which a first cousin of hers did, and in pretty good shape, too.

I realize also that discussions like this are not things younger people (people in their 60s, for instance) want to read and others (not here) have mentioned that, too. Nevertheless, 'good health' is a relative thing, relative to, perhaps, expectations. Mental well-being need not have anything to do with age, which I say based on everyone I've ever known. If someone is a pain to be around when they're 40, they certainly won't be any different when they're 80. Physical strength is one thing; but physical abilities is something else. I guess I shouldn't go into that, however, but I'm not talking about skills.

From the more or less standpoint of this forum, I think the important thing, health-wise, is simply to keep physically active, as far as you are able, and naturally within the limitations of your circumstances. That's hardly a secret or anything knew but there sure is a lot of nonsense out there about it, mostly with the goal of selling someone something. So, get up and go take a hike. There is no danger involved, the cost is minimal and if you go by yourself, you go whenever you please, wherever you want and stay as long as you like. That phrase may need to be modified for those who are married, of course. Anyway, people were saying this more than a hundred years ago. A few things have changed since then, it goes without saying. There is less pollution in some places, especially in the cities, going somewhere is easier, and we don't seem to have the bad winters that everyone used to talk about. You don't even have to go to the woods, either, which are scarce in some places. Some cities have wonderful places for long walks, too, although you probably can't be nude.

The main thing is to live longer than Thoreau did, so you can laugh at everything he said.