It is partly because people gravitate toward cheap, energy-dense food in times of crisis that we see this effect, Nettle says. This is different from a famine situation (where people have such little access to food that they waste away) but remains a hugely problematic and potentially deadly predicament.
But it’s not just that people eat excessive amounts of calories when they can in order to store fat and survive hungry periods—known as the insurance hypothesis. They also appear to change their behavior and physiological processes to reduce the number of calories they burn, says Nettle. This tends to happen at a subconscious level, he adds: “You slow everything down.
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