Evolutionary explanations of food preference:Fatty foods


	Evolutionary explanations of food preference:Fatty foods
	Advantages Gibson and Wardle (2001) provided evidence to support the view that we have evolved a preference for calorie rich foods. They offered children aged 4 and 5 different fruits and vegetables. Bananas and potatoes are particularly high in calories and were most likely to be chosen by the children. This shows an evolved preference for calorie rich foods because they had no knowledge of nutrition.	Disadvantages On the other hand, methodological issues raise doubt over the internal validity of the study because it could be that the children were attracted to the certain fruits because of their soft texture, therefore making the evolutionary explanation of food preference hard to support. Furthermore, a limitation of this is approach is that evolutionary hypotheses are hard to test because we cannot go back to the EEA. Although the experiment conducted by Gibson and Wardle seems to highlight that we have evolved a preference for fatty, high calorie foods, this preference could be the result of something else. Hamburgers, pizza and other high calorie foods may appeal to us and sell well because they correspond to and exploit evolved desires for fatty foods but they may just simply appeal to us because they are advertised well or they are available very easily at fast food restaurants.
	Evaluation

Gibson and Wardle (2001) provided evidence to support the view that we have evolved a preference for calorie rich foods. They offered children aged 4 and 5 different fruits and vegetables. Bananas and potatoes are particularly high in calories and were most likely to be chosen by the children. This shows an evolved preference for calorie rich foods because they had no knowledge of nutrition.

On the other hand, methodological issues raise doubt over the internal validity of the study because it could be that the children were attracted to the certain fruits because of their soft texture, therefore making the evolutionary explanation of food preference hard to support.
Furthermore, a limitation of this is approach is that evolutionary hypotheses are hard to test because we cannot go back to the EEA. Although the experiment conducted by Gibson and Wardle seems to highlight that we have evolved a preference for fatty, high calorie foods, this preference could be the result of something else. Hamburgers, pizza and other high calorie foods may appeal to us and sell well because they correspond to and exploit evolved desires for fatty foods but they may just simply appeal to us because they are advertised well or they are available very easily at fast food restaurants.

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