Waistland: The R/evolutionary Science Behind Our Weight and Fitness Crisis is a book by Harvard psychologist Deirdre Barrett published by W. W. Norton & Company in 2007.

Barrett argues that our bodies, our metabolisms, and our feeding instincts evolved during humanity’s hunter-gatherer phase.

People respect these orders, allowing veterinarians to prescribe just the right balanced diet for the lions, koalas, and snakes.

- Steven Pinker[2] "At the start of this sensible book about the "weight and fitness crisis" in America, Harvard psychologist Deirdre Barrett says the answer lies in the study of evolution.

We are programmed to seek out fat, sugar, starch and salt, because, in the Stone Age, these things were hard to come by.

- The Telegraph (UK)[3] "In a new book, Waistland, Deirdre Barrett points out that KFC or McDonald's would be happy to sell us tofu burgers and carrot strips, but our inner hunter-gatherer wants fat, and sugar, and salt - cravings that made sense for almost all of human existence, just accepting those past few thousand years.