EP's Evolutionary Psychologists break into the self-help market.

EP's Evolutionary Psychologists; claim l to explain such mundanities has enabled it to break into the self-help market.

 In their book Mean Genes (2000), economist Terry Burnham and biologist Jay Phelan offer "an owner's manual for your brain" (p. 1). Their purpose is to demonstrate how an understanding of our behavior in evolutionary terms can help us to compensate for our harmful predispositions and thereby escape some of life's common pitfalls. 

The ability to save, for example, is the essential ingredient for wealth accumulation, but Americans on [End Page 435] average save only around 0.8 percent of their salaries. 

According to Burnham and Phelan, we find it difficult to save because our brains were formed in an environment in which to save actually meant to consume: prior to the invention of preservative techniques, humans stored food in the form of fat. 

So now we have the resulting problem of the high mortaiity rate in Covid 19 of those who are obese.

The authors explain the tendency of people in advanced industrial societies to gain weight in much the same way: our evolutionarily endowed desire to maximize consumption of high-energy foods makes us eat too much, while our equally genetically programmed desire to conserve energy makes us averse to exercise