Critical Book Review Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 2

Critical Book Review - Essay Example Power and Schulkin’s work is a valuable contribution to the growing literature on the biology of obesity, and it probes both the causes and consequences of the epidemic sweeping across developed societies. One positive aspect of The Evolution of Obesity is the fact that Power and Schulkin do not address the best way to respond to obesity, as the wealth of diet and self-help books on the market today attempt to do. What Power and Schulkin set out to accomplish is a biological survey of the nature of obesity, its causes, and its social consequences. An evolutionary approach to the complex nature of the human body (and their adaptations through millennia) is ultimately a superior approach than any other research model currently being used to explain obesity. Because Power and Schulkin make their purpose in this book clear from the outset, its arguments and findings are relatively easy to follow. Their purpose is to explain recent changes in the shape and size of human beings through the lens of evolutionary science. Although it is not controversial to say that society carries the past with it, the idea of evolution that human beings carry millions of years of fine tuning in their bodies and minds is quite controversial. But according to the theory of evolution, this is correct: that many different structures in the human body have different purposes based on adaptation and survival. For instance, the authors write, â€Å"molecules that regulate physiology and behavior are ancient and have been co-opted to perform multiple functions that vary with tissue, stage of development, and the conditions of the internal milieu† (Power & Schulkin, 2009, p. viii). In the in-depth analysis of primate evolutionary history that follows, the aut hors conclude that interactions between biology and environment in the history of man has produced the ability of humans to absorb fats easily compared with other omnivores (especially primates) and, in the modern