Without AC, how did we survive as a species?
It is my opinion, but I do not believe that our bodies are meant to be cold all the time. I believe that seasons as well as exercise (saved for another day) help to control our body weight. By being cold or cool all the time, I think it is telling our bodies to eat more food because winter is coming (no pun intended for the Game of Thrones fans).
Think about most of the animals that experience cycles of hot and cold. When it starts to become cooler, the animals will start to pack on the weight either for hibernation or for fat storage do to the scarcity of food during the winter months. When it warms up, they know that food is on the way and will start to gorge themselves followed by a period of time where they eat less during the really hot months, then starting to eat more when it gets colder again.
By living in air conditioning most of the time, I think we have tricked our bodies into eating more food because it thinks winter is coming. I personally have no problem sleeping without ac and did it for most of my life and during that time, I was skinnier during the summer and a little heavier during the winter. My wife on the other hand cannot sleep without it and as a result we are both overweight by at least 50 pounds.
Am I making excuses, well yes and know. I could still probably control what I ate with a little self discipline, but I choose to eat more than I should. I also find it harder to eat less when it is colder in the house when I would prefer to eat less. Now when I am cooking and the temperature in the kitchen is elevated, I find I eat a lot less. Take tonight for example, I ate about 1/2 of what I would normally eat because I was in the kitchen and hot.
I believe that if God wanted us to have this type of cycle where we were cool all the time or in some cases colder in the summer than in the winter, that He would have built that mechanism into our bodies. Yet, He did not which means to me that we really should experience the seasons as they are meant to be and not to create artificial seasons in our homes. For those that go I cannot sleep when it is so hot and sticky outside, well welcome to the real world where most of the people do not have AC.