If you’ve been tracking the health and fitness world for the past few years, you’ve surely been feeling the palpable buzz around something called “ancestral health” and the word “Paleo.” Signs of this movement are now appearing everywhere, from the increased attention to barefooting to the focus on a real-food, meat and vegetable diet. An explosion of books, magazines, videos and primitive training practices reveals a widespread interest that cuts across traditional boundaries. The word Paleo is now becoming a popular reference point in our daily experience, especially in diet and exercise; we often hear people evaluate the details of their lives with a shorthand comment: “It’s Paleo.” or, “It’s not Paleo.”
There are skeptics, of course. Some critics have dismissed Paleo as just another in a long string of health and fitness fads, most of which have a shelf life of a few months at best. But Paleo is not a fad and it certainly isn’t going to go away. In fact, Paleo is the leading edge in a massive cultural and intellectual shift, a trend that will not only revise the way that we think about health, diet and exercise, but will transform the way that we relate to the modern world at large.
First, a definition. “Paleo” is shorthand for “Paleolithic” and refers to a period of history we call “the old stone age.” It begins with the advent of stone tools some 2 million years ago and extends to the dawn of agriculture, some 10,000 years ago. The vast majority of human prehistory lies within this timespan. Every detail of our anatomy, physiology and psychology has been sculpted by that experience; our bodies are literally built for outdoor living in wild, natural environments. The Paleo philosophy suggests that lifestyles that are consistent with our ancestral heritage are likely to promote health and performance.
Paleo, of course, is built directly on the foundations laid down by Charles Darwin and his theory of natural selection. In his monumental1859 classic, The Origin of Species, Darwin proposed a continuity of life on earth, a great branching tree in which all species are related. During the course of the 20th century, this theory has been validated by biologists, paleontologists and molecular biologists. The popular Paleo movement is simply a natural extension of this discovery.
the joy of paleo
Paleo is attractive because it takes the theory of evolution right down into the fabric of our daily experience. It’s one thing to learn about the grand concepts that unify biology, but Paleo brings evolution directly into the day-to-day reality of our lives; into our gyms and clinics, our grocery stores, our kitchens and our dining rooms. Increasingly, we find ourselves looking at the fine-grained details of our lives and asking “How would this relate to our primal ancestry?” “Is it Paleo?”
Paleo offers us an exciting win-win and a cause for celebration. Not only does it promise to improve our physical health, it also offers something profoundly spiritual. In an age when people often feel isolated from each other and the world at large, Paleo stands as a reminder of our deep connection with tribe and the vast expanse of the biosphere around us. One of the great lessons of biology is the discovery that we are embedded in the very fabric of life; every time we “think Paleo,” we are reminded of our heritage and our common predicament. There is a deep continuity and connection here.
As an organizing principle for health and fitness studies, Paleo is here to stay. Obviously, there is more work to be done: We can argue about the details of human genes, epigenetics and the specifics of physiology. We can argue about the particular characteristics of our ancestral environment and the lifestyles of our primal ancestors. We can argue about the ultimate paleo diet and exercise program. We can argue about the morality and sustainability of a meat-based diet. But there is one thing we can’t argue about: the fact that our bodies have been sculpted by millions of years of evolution to function in a wild, natural outdoor environment. This is an unassailable fact that will not go away.
no turning back
There can be no putting the Paleo genie back in the bottle. Every passing year brings new discoveries about the continuity of life on earth and our deep history as animals. Fossil records, molecular biology, primatology, medicine, veterinary science and a host of related disciplines paint a picture that is becoming increasingly detailed and robust. It has now become impossible to ignore the evolutionary heritage of our bodies.
Not only is Paleo here to stay, it is bound to become increasingly powerful force in the way we understand our lives. Building on bedrock knowledge of human history and biology, we will discover more and more connections between our bodies, habitat and history. These connections will inform our health, fitness and medical practices across the board.
Paleo cannot be ignored.
