Fed Up: What Evolution Reveals about Food, Diet, Health, and Eating Well

November 14, 2026
2:00 pm – 3:00 pm

Field Museum of Natural History
Field Museum, South Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, IL, USA

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Program Series:
Health and WellnessScience and Society

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How many times a day do you ask the question, “What should I eat?” Are you confused and overwhelmed by the thousands of factory-made foods supermarkets sell? Or the abundance of diets (paleo, Mediterranean, low-fat, low-carb, low-calorie, intermittent fasting, vegan, vegetarian, carnivore) claimed to optimize your health and manage your weight?

In this talk and his new book, Fed Up, best-selling author and Harvard professor Daniel Lieberman tackles this confusion. Drawing on evolutionary biology, anthropology, physiology, and medical science, he explores how our ancestors never evolved to choose their food to lose weight or live to 100. Instead, we evolved to eat almost anything in order to survive.

By telling the fascinating story of diets from seven million years ago to the present and using myth-busting science to evaluate today’s most popular diets, Lieberman explains what everyone needs to know to make wiser, kinder choices about what to eat. This talk will help you understand why no diet is flawless, though some are better than others.

Dr Lieberman will sign copies of his book, Fed Up, following the lecture.

Event Details

Date and Time: November 14th, 2026; 2 pm – 3 pm

Location: Field Museum of Natural History

Details: This event will be presented in-person at the Field Museum and live-streamed to pre-registered guests. Please fill out the registration form below to reserve your spot. Only pre-registered guests receive free basic admission to the Field Museum.

Copies of Fed Up will be available for purchase at the event, and a book signing will follow the lecture.

 

Featured Guests

Dan Lieberman, PhD

Daniel Lieberman is the Edwin M Lerner II Professor of Biological Science, founding Chair of Harvard’s Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, and a member of The Leakey Foundation’s Scientific Executive Committee. He studies and teaches how and why the human body is the way it is, and the relevance of human evolution to contemporary health. He is best known for his research on the evolution and biology of long-distance running (including barefoot running) and the evolution of the highly unusual human head. He has published more than 200 peer-reviewed papers and four books: Fed Up:  What Evolution Reveals about Food, Diet, Health, and Eating Well (Knopf, 2026), Exercised: Why Something We Never Evolved to Do is Healthy and Rewarding (Pantheon, 2021), The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health and Disease (Pantheon, 2013), and The Evolution of the Human Head (Harvard University Press, 2011). He is an avid runner and loves to cook.