Evidence map›Paper›PMID 27464638›Full record

SynthesisThe Behavioral and brain sciences2017

Food insecurity as a driver of obesity in humans: The insurance hypothesis.

Daniel Nettle, Clare Andrews, Melissa Bateson

Registry-linked trialOpen access · bronzeAbstract readMeta-Analysis
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Synthesis in The Behavioral and brain sciences, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT06800794 (Effect of Meal Timing and Dietary Changes on Metabolic and Behavioral Factors Involved in the Food Insecurity-Obesity Paradox), which is not on this map. Cited by 132 papers, 8 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
132citing papers in PubMed, 8 pooled it
20.9field-weighted citation impact, top 1% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

NCT06800794 naactive not recruitingnot on this mapstarted 2025, after this paper: background citation

Effect of Meal Timing and Dietary Changes on Metabolic and Behavioral Factors Involved in the Food Insecurity-Obesity Paradox

TypeinterventionalSponsorState University of New York at BuffaloRan2025 to 2026Enrolled12ConditionsObesity and Type 2 DiabetesArmsBehavioral Skill Training, Meal Provisioning
3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

132 citing papers in PubMed, 8 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 298 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Pooled it
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  5. Association between food insecurity and chronic noncommunicable diseases in Brazil: a systematic review.Revista brasileira de epidemiologia = Brazilian journal of epidemiology · 2024
    Pooled it
  6. Pooled it
  7. Pooled it
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  9. Trial
  10. Trial
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  12. Article
  13. Article
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  16. Article
  17. Effects of healthy lifestyles on the association between food security and all-cause mortality risk.The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2026
    Article
  18. Review
  19. Weight management in women of reproductive age.Obesity and endocrinology · 2026
    Review
  20. Article

72 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.

Daniel NettleCentre for Behaviour and Evolution & Institute of Neuroscience,Newcastle University,Newcastle NE2 4HH,United Kingdom.daniel.nettle@ncl.ac.ukhttp://www.danielnettle.org.uk.
Clare AndrewsCentre for Behaviour and Evolution & Institute of Neuroscience,Newcastle University,Newcastle NE2 4HH,United Kingdom.clare.andrews@ncl.ac.ukhttp://bit.ly/clareandrews.
Melissa BatesonCentre for Behaviour and Evolution & Institute of Neuroscience,Newcastle University,Newcastle NE2 4HH,United Kingdom.melissa.bateson@ncl.ac.ukhttps://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/melissa.bateson/.
Newcastle University · GB

Funding

European Research Council 666669
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Integrative explanations of why obesity is more prevalent in some sectors of the human population than others are lacking. Here, we outline and evaluate one candidate explanation, the insurance hypothesis (IH). The IH is rooted in adaptive evolutionary thinking: The function of storing fat is to provide a buffer against shortfall in the food supply. Thus, individuals should store more fat when they receive cues that access to food is uncertain. Applied to humans, this implies that an important proximate driver of obesity should be food insecurity rather than food abundance per se. We integrate several distinct lines of theory and evidence that bear on this hypothesis. We present a theoretical model that shows it is optimal to store more fat when food access is uncertain, and we review the experimental literature from non-human animals showing that fat reserves increase when access to food is restricted. We provide a meta-analysis of 125 epidemiological studies of the association between perceived food insecurity and high body weight in humans. There is a robust positive association, but it is restricted to adult women in high-income countries. We explore why this could be in light of the IH and our theoretical model. We conclude that although the IH alone cannot explain the distribution of obesity in the human population, it may represent a very important component of a pluralistic explanation. We also discuss insights it may offer into the developmental origins of obesity, dieting-induced weight gain, and anorexia nervosa.

Indexed as

DietFemaleFood SupplyHumansMaleObesityOverweightSex Factorsbehavioural ecologyeating disordersfood insecurityhunger-obesity paradoxmeta-analysisObesityoverweightweight regulation

Identifiers

PMID27464638
PMCPMC5266557
OpenAlexW2482822701

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceTDM
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.