导读

减肥之路漫漫，你是否曾为此苦恼？最新研究揭示，长期减肥的挑战远超你的想象。超过80%的人在大幅减重后五年内会重新增重！这不是缺乏毅力，而是身体在进化过程中被设定为脂肪的储存地。

古人类学家Daniel Lieberman告诉我们，人类作为“异常肥胖的物种”，脂肪在进化史上赋予我们优势。为了繁衍，我们需要大量的脂肪。而今，尽管环境剧变，我们的身体却仍遵循着古老的指令。要想战胜身体的“抗减重”机制，你或许需要重新认识和对待自己的体重问题。

If you think it’s hard to lose weight and keep it off, you are not alone — and you are also 100% correct. Long-term weight loss is really difficult to achieve, studies have found.

你并不孤单，因为减肥并保持体重确实很难。最新研究显示，长期减肥真的很难实现。

Estimates vary, but it’s believed that more than 80% of people who lose a substantial amount of weight regain it within five years.

虽然数字可能有所出入，但据信超过80%的人在体重大幅下降后会在五年内重新增重。

But failure to shed pounds is often not about lacking the willpower to make important lifestyle changes, such as eating healthier, reducing calories and increasing physical activity. The dirty little secret is that our bodies are programmed by evolution to hold on to fat.

减肥失败往往并不是因为没有毅力去改变重要的生活方式，比如吃得更健康、减少热量摄入和增加体育锻炼。但是，一个难以启齿的事实是，我们的身体在进化过程中被设定为脂肪的储存地。

“We evolved not to lose weight intentionally,” paleoanthropologist Daniel Lieberman told CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta recently on the podcast Chasing Life. Lieberman, a professor and chair of the department of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University, studies why the human body looks and functions the way it does.

“我们进化到现在，并不会刻意去减肥，”古人类学家Daniel Lieberman在追逐生命播客中告诉CNN首席医学记者Sanjay Gupta博士。Lieberman是哈佛大学人类进化生物学系的教授兼系主任，他的研究方向是人体外观和功能的原因。

“All animals need some fat, but humans have evolved to have exceptionally high levels of fat, even thin humans,” he said. “And so we are under exceptional sort of biological pressure, always, to put it on and keep it as long as we have it, for when we need it.”

"所有动物都需要一些脂肪，但人类在进化过程中脂肪含量特别高，即使是看似瘦弱的人也不例外，”他说，“这就意味着，只要我们身上有脂肪，就总会面临一种特殊的生物压力，那就是必须保持这些脂肪，以备不时之需。"

Humans are fundamentally adapted not to be happy or healthy but rather to be reproductively successful, Lieberman said. And for that, we need fat, a lot of fat — which is why Lieberman calls humans “an unusually fat species” compared with other mammals, even other primates.

Lieberman 指出，人类生存和繁衍的成功并非基于快乐或健康，而是基于繁殖的成功。为了达到这个目的，我们需要大量的脂肪。正因为如此，他称人类为"异常肥胖的物种"，与其他哺乳动物甚至其他灵长类动物相比。

“We have these big brains, which cost a huge amount of energy. … It’s 20% of our metabolism,” he said. “And a baby, when it’s born, half of its energy is paying for its brain. It needs a lot of fat. So … human babies are born very fat because they have to have that energy to make sure that they can keep their brain going.”

"我们的大脑很大，需要消耗大量的能量。它占据了我们新陈代谢的20%。而婴儿刚出生时，一半的能量都用在了大脑上。大脑需要大量的脂肪。所以，人类的婴儿生下来就比较胖，因为他们必须要有这些能量来确保大脑的正常运转。"

Lieberman said fat is storable energy. It helped early humans stay alive, powered their bodies to find food, kept their brains working and made them healthy enough to reproduce.

Lieberman 解释说，脂肪作为一种可储存的能量，在早期人类的生活中起到了至关重要的作用。它为身体提供动力，维持生命活动，确保大脑的正常运转，并使人类保持健康，从而成功地繁衍后代。

“It’s like money in the bank account. And so individuals who have appropriate levels of fat did better in our evolutionary history than those who didn’t,” he said. “And so we were selected to make sure that we always could put it on, because there were always times when we had to lose it.”

“这就像银行账户里的钱一样，适当的脂肪水平在进化史上让个体更有优势，”他解释道，“我们天生就有增加脂肪的能力，因为总有需要减掉脂肪的时候。”

Lieberman said humans never evolved to lose weight deliberately.

Lieberman指出，人类从未进化到刻意减肥的地步。

And while our bodies haven’t really evolved from those earlier times, our environment has — and that is, what Lieberman called, a big mismatch. Nowadays, we don’t have to run from wild animals, travel long distances on foot, or hunt and gather our next meal. We can pick up a smartphone to call an Uber or Uber Eats and experience all manner of modern conveniences. As a result, many people now live with weight issues and obesity, and all of the “mismatch diseases” that stem from that.

尽管我们的身体并未随早期进化而改变，但我们的环境却发生了翻天覆地的变化，这导致了一个巨大的不匹配。如今，我们不再需要躲避野生动物、长途跋涉或狩猎采集食物。取而代之的是，我们只需拿起智能手机，便能享受各种现代便利。然而，这也导致了许多人面临体重问题和肥胖症，以及由肥胖引发的各种“错配疾病”。

“So mismatch diseases are defined as conditions or diseases that are more common or more severe when we live in environments for which we’re poorly or inadequately adapted,” Lieberman said, referring to our modern-day “obesogenic environment” that often contributes to weight gain.

Lieberman将错配疾病定义为，当我们生活在不适应或不充分适应的环境中时，更常见或更严重的状况或疾病。他强调，我们当前的“肥胖环境”往往会导致体重增加。

“And so, of course, it’s hard. It’s because we evolved not to lose weight intentionally. And so, losing weight requires dieting, requires tricking your body and overcoming those adaptations — which your body’s going to fight you every, every inch of the way.”

他坦言：“减肥确实很难，因为在进化过程中，我们并没有刻意减肥的基因。减肥需要节食、欺骗身体，并克服这些适应性，而你的身体会在每个环节上与你对抗。”

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