Summary

The web content discusses the health, diet, and exercise habits of the Hadza, one of the last hunter-gatherer societies, and draws lessons for modern life.

Abstract

The article "What Can a Day in the Life of a Hunter-Gatherer Teach us About Health, Diet, and Exercise?" delves into the lifestyle of the Hadza people, offering insights into how their daily activities, such as extensive walking, hunting, gathering, and social interactions, align with our evolutionary biology. It contrasts the hunter-gatherer way of life with modern sedentary societies, highlighting the potential health benefits of emulating certain aspects of the Hadza's lifestyle, such as regular physical activity, social engagement, and intermittent fasting. The Hadza's approach to possessions and their 'hamna shida' (no worries) philosophy suggest a more relaxed attitude towards material wealth and life's challenges, which could be beneficial for mental health in contemporary societies.

Opinions

The Hadza's active lifestyle, with an average of 9–15kms walked daily, is seen as a key factor in their good health and longevity, suggesting that modern humans may be poorly adapted to sedentary lifestyles.
The Hadza diet, which includes honey, bee larvae, meat, and wild vegetables, as well as periods of hunger, is presented as a natural form of intermittent fasting that may contribute to their lack of cardiometabolic diseases.
Social life among the Hadza is inherently communal, which aligns with the idea that humans are social creatures who benefit from strong community ties, as evidenced by the health impacts of loneliness in modern societies.
The Hadza's minimal possessions and transient homes reflect a lifestyle that is more in harmony with the environment and less focused on material wealth, offering a perspective on what is truly necessary for a fulfilling life.
The article conveys that adopting aspects of the Hadza's lifestyle, such as regular activity, communal living, and a relaxed approach to material possessions, could improve the health and well-being of people in modern societies.

HEALTH, EVOLUTION AND SCIENCE

What Can a Day in the Life of a Hunter-Gatherer Teach us About Health, Diet, and Exercise?

Life lessons from the Hadza, one of the few remaining hunter-gatherer societies

For most of our 200,000–300,000 years as a species, we lived as hunter-gatherers. Even today, some people continue to live a traditional hunter-gatherer life, though their numbers are few and dwindling.

Our biology has been moulded by our evolutionary history as hunter-gatherers. But most people no longer live as hunter-gatherers. Over thousands of years, since the end of the last Ice Age, humans built sedentary-agricultural societies that are now home to most people.

Thousands of years may sound like a long time, but this is a fraction of our history as hunter-gatherers. And farming is unusual in nature, though some ants do it as well (e.g., cultivating mushrooms).

Given the pace of our shift from hunter-gatherers to sedentary-agricultural societies, we’re likely to face evolutionary mismatches. As a result, we should be poorly adapted to modern environments in at least some ways.

To get a sense of the mismatches we’re caught in, and what we can do to improve our health, diet, and exercise, let’s look at a day in the life of one group of hunter-gatherers: the Hadza.

Hadza hunter-gatherers

Exercise

For the Hadza, the number one fact of life is walking. Lots of walking. On average, Hadza can expect to walk about 9–15kms every day. But Hadza may live to 80 or more, and their daily step count declines in older age. At this point, they often spend more time around camp, keeping an eye out and helping with various tasks in a sort of semi-retirement.

Hadza life, image sourced from Wikimedia Commons

Diet

In Hadza society, men hunt and women gather. In good times, they eat favourites like honey, bee larvae straight from the hive, meat, and wild vegetables like tubers. In hard times, they eat what’s available, and get very familiar with nagging hunger. In general, hunger is a regular feature of hunter-gatherer life.

Social life

Daily life for Hadza is inherently social. Virtually every activity is a group activity, and you’re never far away from fellow community members (unless you want to be). One familiar example is the time-honoured tradition of smoko. Yes, the Hadza also love a good smoko, and are known to smoke marijuana.

Health

But unlike sedentary-agricultural societies, cardiometabolic disease is essentially unknown to the Hadza. Instead, their main concern is parasites and infectious disease – the mirror image of the West.

Wealth

The Hadza also have few permanent possessions. They make their tools for hunting and gathering from materials that are readily available from the environment. Their homes are the same, and can be easily assembled and discarded when they move camp.

In dark grey, the map shows the small piece of Hadza territory near Lake Eyasi in northern Tanzania. Image from Wikimedia Commons

Philosophy

And when confronted with emergencies like wild fires, they don’t fret over losing their homes or property. They know they can make replacements, and can rely on the community for help. This is summed up in the Hadza saying, ‘hamna shida’, Swahili for something like ‘no worries’.

What can we learn from the Hadza?

We can learn a lot from the Hadza. For one thing, being hungry is normal, and we should be comfortable experiencing it for extended periods. The current excitement about intermittent fasting suggests that this can be very beneficial for weight loss and good health.

Second, our biology has evolved to expect activity, and sedentary lifestyles are dangerous. Everyone’s different, so you need to find the right level of activity for you. But research on conditions like cancer and cardiometabolic disease suggest that sedentary lifestyles are a major risk factor for illness and death.

Third, we’re a social species, and loneliness is literally deadly. This is why we all understand when Tom Hanks talks to Wilson the volleyball in Cast Away, and even risks his life trying to save Wilson. This is also why studies reliably show that healthy relationships are the best predictor of happiness in life. The modern world has a way of atomising people, and we need to resist this if we want to be healthy.

Hadza dancing. Source: Wikimedia Commons

If we learn a few lessons from the Hadza, and embrace a bit of hamna shida, we may find that a more hunter-gatherer approach to life still fits like an old shoe. There’s already evidence to suggest this, and many of the lessons are highly intuitive. If getting back to our evolutionary roots has as much promise as it seems, let’s hope we learn quickly. See you around the camp fire.