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Dr. Peter Whybrow
Psychiatrist, neuroscientist
We were designed to run for our supper, and if you caught it you ate it. It's a very different life we live now.
Q: How is our desire to have more of everything making us sick?
There are all sorts of ways in which that's happening. We're getting more anxious. Probably the most obvious, though, is we're getting fatter. And that's a big problem, especially for kids, because they are going to be ruining their own life span in that way.
Q: What does it mean when we don't know how to handle affluence?
It's finding the "balance in the mean," as Shakespeare said. The fact is that it's undoubtedly true that poverty is bad for you. But it's also becoming true that affluence is bad for you, especially if you don't know how to manage it. So somewhere in the middle is the ideal.
Dr. Peter Whybrow is one of the world's foremost authorities on neuropsychiatric research. He's the author of several books, including American Mania, in which he argues that America's obsession with consumption threatens its citizens' health.
Related Episode
Recommended Web Sites
The official Peter Whybrow site includes information about his book, American Mania.
This Psychology Today article says money doesn’t equal happiness, especially for the young.
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Published: September 15, 2005
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