Why Modern Food Makes Us Overeat
While working in a molecular virology lab at University College London, Chris van Tulleken learned to see biology as a constant struggle for survival. Viruses and cells are locked in a long contest, with each side adapting to the other. Even human DNA carries traces of ancient viral material, showing how conflict and adaptation have shaped the body over time. That same logic of competition helps explain what has happened to food.
For most of human history, eating was part of a natural balance. Plants, animals, and humans all competed for energy, and our bodies evolved systems to help us find food, stop eating when satisfied, and stay healthy. In the last 150 years, a different environment emerged. Food production became industrial, and profit replaced nourishment as the main force shaping what fills shop shelves.
In this new environment, many products are built to override the body’s normal controls. These foods are cheap to make, easy to transport, intensely rewarding, and hard to stop eating. They now make up most of the diet in countries such as the UK and the US. As they spread, obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and mental health problems have risen with them.
This shift is often explained as a failure of willpower, but that does not fit the scale of the change. A sudden collapse in self-control across entire populations is not a serious explanation. The more convincing explanation is that the food environment changed first. People are now surrounded by products designed to push consumption upward, and the body is reacting exactly as we would expect in that setting.
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