The obesity epidemic strikes chimps etc.
Go to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and you’re unlikely to encounter chimps so plump they have trouble climbing trees or vervet monkeys so chubby they huff and puff as they swing from branch to branch. Humans are a different story. Walk down a typical U.S. street and almost half of the people you encounter are likely to have obesity.
Scientists have long blamed our status as the
“fattest primate” on genes that help us store fat more efficiently or diets overloaded with sugars or fat. But a new study of 40 species of nonhuman primates, ranging from tiny mouse lemurs to hulking gorillas, finds many pack on the pounds just as easily as we do, regardless of diet, habitat, or genetic differences. All they need is extra food.
“Lots of primates put on too much weight, the same as humans,” says Herman Pontzer, a biological anthropologist at Duke University and author of the
new study, published this week in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. “Humans are not special.”
https://www.science.org/content/article/humans-aren-t-only-fat-primate