Club EvMed: Virtual Evolutionary Medicine Conversations

Club EvMed is a web series launched in April 2020 to keep the evolutionary medicine community connected during a time of pandemic-related social distancing. These regularly-held virtual meetings are styled around the idea of a journal club, with a different topic and discussion leader each time. Club EvMed is organized by the International Society for Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health (ISEMPH) and five evolutionary medicine centers: the Triangle Center for Evolutionary Medicine (TriCEM), the UCLA Evolutionary Medicine Interdisciplinary Center, the ASU Center for Evolution and Medicine, the Pittsburgh Center for Evolutionary Biology and Medicine, and the University of Zurich Institute of Evolutionary Medicine.

This week’s Club EvMed is “Why Sitting Is Not the New Smoking: an evolutionary medical perspective on physical inactivity.” Join us on Thursday, September 17th at 12pm ET for a conversation with Daniel Lieberman, Edwin M. Lerner II Professor of Biological Sciences at Harvard University. In this talk he’ll review the history of ideas about energy allocation to physical activity versus inactivity with a focus on the energetics and biomechanics of sitting. He’ll try to show how many common ideas about sitting have been exaggerated or in some cases refuted but persist because of cultural norms and the often sensationalist way in which health and science information is conveyed to the public. These ideas are discussed in his upcoming book, “Exercised: Why Something We Never Evolved to Do Is Healthy and Rewarding.” Sign up here for the meeting link: https://duke.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcsdOmopzMuGtYJzBIWU1_6Aq36tvZavdYr.

For a full list of upcoming speakers, archived recordings of previous meetings, and to sign up for our email list so you never miss a meeting, visit the Club EvMed website at http://clubevmed.org.