A nice recent paper brings together two of the themes of chapter 11: obesity, and Tinbergen’s four questions. Jonathan Wells uses the framework of the four questions to examine what we know about the human propensity to obesity. It’s a complex picture, which defies any simple ‘we’re fat because in the Stone Age you needed to eat as much as you can’ soundbite, but it shows how our evolutionary history is relevant, and how the four questions remain a good framework for considering the multi-facetted determinants of behaviour.

Well, J.S.C. (2006). The evolution of human fatness and susceptibility to obesity: An ethological approach. 81: 183-205. [DOI: 10.1017/S1464793105006974]