Professor%20Stanley%20Ulijaszek: List of publications
Showing 1 to 159 of 159 publications
Translating models of obesity to tackle common obesity.
November 2023
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Journal article
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Science translational medicine
Tackling common obesity rests on having models of obesity that can be effectively translated into models for intervention; are we nearly there yet?
Humans, Obesity, Models, Biological
Obesity and environments external to the body.
September 2023
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Journal article
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Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences
Studies of environment and obesity usually use epidemiologically tractable measures that are proxies for energy balance or macronutrient composition intake, mostly to identify individual behavioural changes for prevention or reduction of obesity, or inform policy. Of environments external to the body as they relate to obesity, the built environment and the food environment are considered among the most important. Incorporating human sociality into obesity and environments research enriches the field by offering possible ways for understanding obesity production via social stress, dietary preference, food consumption and physical activity. External environments are in flux, however, especially with changing urban form and social environmental hybridity since Web 2.0, with urban polycentricity and networked and online activity influencing obesity production in new ways. While the world's rural populations are experiencing the fastest increases in obesity, large urban populations benefit from scale in setting the physical conditions for physical activity and healthy food availability, with larger and polycentric cities having lower rates of obesity than smaller monocentric or dispersed cities. It is argued that built, food and social environments set the context for obesity production or its amelioration, with sociodemographic factors being more important than new phenomena such as digital and smart technologies. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'Causes of obesity: theories, conjectures and evidence (Part I)'.
Humans, Obesity, Exercise, Diet, Environment Design, Social Environment
Introduction: Population Change, Social Reproduction and Local Understandings of Fertility in Melanesia
December 2022
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Book
44 Human Society, 4406 Human Geography, 4403 Demography
Using a new socioepidemiological questionnaire to analyse associations between intergenerational upward social mobility and body fat distribution: A pilot study with the Oxford BioBank cohort
September 2020
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Journal article
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Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health
<p><strong>Background:</strong><br />
As measured through body mass index (BMI), obesity is more prevalent among upwardly mobile adults than among adults born into middle-class families. Although BMI reflects general adiposity, health risks are more strongly associated with abdominal adiposity. It is therefore important to investigate associations between upward mobility and fat distribution.</p><br />
<p><strong>Methods:</strong><br />
A socioepidemiological questionnaire was developed, qualitatively validated and piloted with Oxford BioBank participants. Sex-specific analyses of variance (ANOVA) investigated associations between participant occupational class and adiposity, paternal occupational class and adiposity, and upward occupational mobility and adiposity. The main aim was to observe whether the expected directional effect of adiposity in relation to paternal occupational class would emerge.</p><br />
<p><strong>Results:</strong><br />
280 participants (166 women, 114 men; age 32–67 years) completed the questionnaire. Men with fathers of occupational class 2 or 3 had higher mean BMI, total body fat percentage, android fat mass and android-to-gynoid fat mass ratio than men with fathers of occupational class 1. Women with fathers of occupational class 2 or 3 had higher mean BMI, total body fat percentage, android fat mass and gynoid fat mass than women with fathers of occupational class 1. Among men, upward mobility was not associated with adiposity. Among women, upward mobility was associated with higher total body fat percentage, android fat mass and gynoid fat mass.</p><br />
<p><strong>Conclusion:</strong><br />
The expected directional effect was found, thereby supporting the questionnaire’s use. Upward mobility did not appear to change associations between paternal occupational class and participant adiposity. Future research using the socioepidemiological questionnaire should investigate associations between gender, educational mobility, adiposity and health.</p>
FFR
Ecological Sensing Through Taste and Chemosensation Mediates Inflammation: A Biological Anthropological Approach
July 2020
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Journal article
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Advances in Nutrition
<jats:title>ABSTRACT</jats:title>
<jats:p>Ecological sensing and inflammation have evolved to ensure optima between organism survival and reproductive success in different and changing environments. At the molecular level, ecological sensing consists of many types of receptors located in different tissues that orchestrate integrated responses (immune, neuroendocrine systems) to external and internal stimuli. This review describes emerging data on taste and chemosensory receptors, proposing them as broad ecological sensors and providing evidence that taste perception is shaped not only according to sense epitopes from nutrients but also in response to highly diverse external and internal stimuli. We apply a biological anthropological approach to examine how ecological sensing has been shaped by these stimuli through human evolution for complex interkingdom communication between a host and pathological and symbiotic bacteria, focusing on population-specific genetic diversity. We then focus on how these sensory receptors play a major role in inflammatory processes that form the basis of many modern common metabolic diseases such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, and aging. The impacts of human niche construction and cultural evolution in shaping environments are described with emphasis on consequent biological responsiveness.</jats:p>
Productive simplification in the use of anthropometric nutritional status
January 2020
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Journal article
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European Journal of Clinical Nutrition
FFR
Last Word on Viewpoint: Rejuvenation of the term sarcopenia
January 2019
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Journal article
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Journal of Applied Physiology
We thank all the commentators for their very valued observations. One of the main purposes of our 49 Viewpoint is to initiate debate concerning the phenomenon of Sarcopenia. About half of the commentators 50 agree with our suggestion on returning to the original definition, but emphasizing the importance of 51 acknowledging other important factors which contribute to impairment of muscle strength and function, and 52 subsequently to impaired physical capabilities. In general, these commentators suggest that these factors be 53 named and considered separately to loss of muscle mass. Conversely, the other half of commentators favor 54 the clinical usefulness of the present definition of Sarcopenia and are comfortable with the multivalent nature 55 of this definition.
Identifying notions of environment in obesity research using a mixed‐methods approach
December 2018
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Journal article
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Obesity Reviews
The recent rise of computation‐based methods in social science has opened new opportunities for exploring qualitative questions through analysis of large amounts of text. This article uses a mixed‐methods design that incorporates machine reading, network analysis, semantic analysis, and qualitative analysis of 414 highly cited publications on obesogenic environments between 2001 and 2015. The method produces an elaborate network map exhibiting five distinct notions of environment, all of which are currently active in the field of obesity research. The five notions are institutional, built, food, family, and bodily environments. The network map is proposed as a navigational tool both for policy actors who wish to coordinate efforts between a variety of stakeholders and for researchers who wish to understand their own research and research plans in light of different positions in the field. The final part of the article explores how the network map may also initiate a broader set of reflections on the configuration, differentiation, and coherence of the field of obesity research.
Physical activity and the human body in the (increasingly smart) built environment
December 2018
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Journal article
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Obesity Reviews
Physical activity in the built environment of high income countries may be changing faster than at any time prior to the 2000s, with the engagement of social media, smart devices and increasing urban smartness that has come with the Internet of Things. This article describes the most salient features of built environments that have facilitated physical activity between the 1980s and 2000s (most importantly walkability and active transport with bicycles). It goes on to use the anthropological three bodies framework in association with that of forms of capital, to explore how the use of smart devices and increasing incorporation of smartness and performativity into architecture and urban planning since the 2000s might influence physical activity. Smartness and use of smart devices in the built environment should favour increased physical activity through new types of sociality that they facilitate. In turn, engagement with such technologies offers an important opportunity for the empowerment of the individual body–self and the social body towards increased physical activity.
capital, urbanism, obesity, physical activity
Rejuvenation of the term Sarcopenia.
July 2018
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Journal article
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Journal of applied physiology (Bethesda, Md. : 1985)
The problem with relying on dietary surveys: sociocultural correctives to theories of dietary change in the Pacific islands
June 2018
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Journal article
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Annals of Human Biology
<p>Background Dietary surveys are frequently used as the basis for theorising nutritional change and diet-related non-communicable disease emergence (DR-NCD) in the Pacific islands. However, findings from historical survey data do not always align with ethnographic evidence.</p> <p>Aims This paper aims to examine the extent to which the two types of evidence can lead to similar conclusions, and draw out the implications for current theories of, and interventions addressing, nutritional change.</p> <p>Subjects and methods Dietary surveys carried out on Nauru between 1927 and 1979 are reviewed and compared with ethnographic evidence documented by social researchers across the colonial and post-colonial periods.</p> <p>Results This comparison reveals several shortcomings of survey data. Nutritional issues considered to be relatively recent—such as high-fat, low-fibre diets and transition to imported foods—occurred a century ago in our analysis and point to a long history of nutrition policy and intervention failure. Further, there is limited evidence that caloric intake overall increased significantly over this period of time in Nauru.</p> <p>Conclusions Theories of dietary change and DR-NCD emergence and resulting interventions could be improved through a more holistic approach to nutrition that integrates sociocultural and historical evidence about both the target population and the scientists doing the research.</p>
Governance by campaign: the co-constitution of food issues, publics and expertise through new information and communication technologies
August 2017
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Journal article
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Information, Communication & Society
This paper considers food as a site of public engagement with science and technology. Specifically, we focus on how public engagement with food is envisioned and operationalised by one non-profit organisation, foodwatch. Founded in Germany in 2002, foodwatch extensively uses new information and communication technologies to inform consumers about problematic food industry practices. In this paper, we present our analysis of 50 foodwatch e-newsletters published over a period of one year (2013). We define foodwatch’s approach as ‘governance by campaign’ – an approach marked by simultaneously constituting: (a) key food governance issues, (b) affective publics that address these topics of governance through ICT-enabled media and (c) independent food and food-related expertise. We conclude our paper with a discussion of foodwatch’s mode of ‘governance by campaign’ and the democratic limits and potentials of a governance mode that is based on invited participation.
Diabetes on twitter: Influence, activism and what we can learn from all the food jokes
January 2017
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Chapter
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Digital Food Activism
Governments across the world are increasingly using social media platforms like Twitter to disseminate health information and advice. Growing numbers of health departments and organisations have social media policies, and social media are now used by many as a low-cost tool for addressing so-called ‘lifestyle diseases’ such as obesity and Type 2 diabetes. The effectiveness of these initiatives is generally measured in terms of the number of subscribers following social media accounts (e.g. see Public Health England, 2014). Government social media policies tend to focus on legal concerns such as regulating staff use and ensuring privacy protection, rather than citizen health outcomes or experiences (Fast et al., 2015).
Digital food activism
January 2017
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Book
This book explores the role of digital media technologies in creating new forms of consumer activism and engagement with food, eating and food systems. Food is an increasingly prominent subject of engagement online, from the aesthetics of cooking to the ethics of shopping. This book adopts a multi-disciplinary approach, bringing together food studies, and science and technology studies. The role of social media, apps, and other online technologies is considered in relation to activist and consumer issues in the UK, Australia, Europe and South America. Digital Food Activism explores a variety of contemporary topics, including Twitter and diabetes, hashtag activism and the prospect of 3D printed food.
Digital food activism: Values, expertise and modes of action
January 2017
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Chapter
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Digital Food Activism
In this chapter, we turn to the three case studies we explored in our 2013–2016 research project on how new information and communication technologies (ICTs) mediate novel forms of consumer activism and food governance. Each case study represents a different type of digital platform used in food activism: a mobile app, a wiki platform, and an online-centric activist organization. Case studies, by definition, do not provide an exhaustive review; for example, the case studies we selected do not address more diffuse activism through social media. Our aim, however, is not to review all types of digital food activism, but rather to capture diverse forms and potentials of digital food activism, and develop an analytic framework that can be applied to other cases in the field.
Introduction: Digital food activism - food transparency one byte/bite at a time?
January 2017
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Chapter
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Digital Food Activism
How many food apps do you have on your mobile phone? How often do you share information on food via a tweet or a Facebook post? How often do you see or upload food photos on Instagram? Even if you do not actively post or seek information about food online, it is likely that you have encountered numerous food posts, images, and videos on various online platforms. Food is an increasingly prominent subject of engagement online, from the aesthetics of cooking to the ethics of shopping. In this volume, we contemplate what happens when food, this visceral and enlivening matter, goes digital – and particularly what happens when activism surrounding food moves into the digital domain.
The 'who' and 'what' of #diabetes on Twitter
January 2017
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Journal article
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Digital Health
Social media are being increasingly used for health promotion, yet the landscape of users, messages and interactions in such fora is poorly understood. Studies of social media and diabetes have focused mostly on patients, or public agencies addressing it, but have not looked broadly at all the participants or the diversity of content they contribute. We study Twitter conversations about diabetes through the systematic analysis of 2.5 million tweets collected over 8 months and the interactions between their authors. We address three questions: (1) what themes arise in these tweets?; (2) who are the most in uential users?; (3) which type of users contribute to which themes? We answer these questions using a mixed-methods approach, integrating techniques from anthropology, network science and information retrieval such as thematic coding, temporal network analysis, and community and topic detection. Diabetes-related tweets fall within broad thematic groups: health information, news, social interaction, and commercial. At the same time, humorous messages and references to popular culture appear consistently, more than any other type of tweet. We classify authors according to their temporal `hub' and `authority' scores. Whereas the hub landscape is diffuse and uid over time, top authorities are highly persistent across time and comprise bloggers, advocacy groups and NGOs related to diabetes, as well as for-profit entities without specific diabetes expertise. Top authorities fall into seven interest communities as derived from their Twitter follower network. Our findings have implications for public health professionals and policy makers who seek to use social media as an engagement tool and to inform policy design.
temporal networks, humour, social networks, diabetes, Twitter, public health, topic detection
Epigenetics and Obesity
December 2016
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Journal article
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Body & Society
4410 Sociology, 44 Human Society, Obesity
Mobile activism, material imaginings, and the ethics of the edible: Framing political engagement through the Buycott app
June 2016
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Journal article
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Geoforum
In this article, we explore the discursive constructions of Buycott, a free mobile app that provides a platform for user-generated ethical consumption campaigns. Unlike other ethical consumption apps, Buycott’s mode of knowledge production positions the app itself as neutral, with app users generating activist campaigns and providing both data and judgment. Although Buycott is not a dedicated food activism app, food features centrally in its campaigns, and the app seems to provide a mobile means of extending, and perhaps expanding, alternative food network (AFN) action across geographies and constituencies. Thus, as a case study, Buycott unveils contemporary possibilities for citizen participation and the formation of activist consumer communities, both local and transnational, through mobile technologies. Our analysis shows, however, that despite the app’s user-generated format, the forms of activism it enables are constrained by the app’s binary construction of action as consumption or non-consumption and its ethos of ‘voting with your wallet’. Grounded in texts concerning Buycott’s two largest campaigns (Demand GMO Labeling and Long live Palestine boycott Israel), our analysis delineates how Buycott, its campaigns, and its modes of action take shape in user, media, and app developer discourses. We find that, as discursively framed, Buycott campaigns are commodity-centric, invoking an ‘ethics of care’ to be enacted by atomized consumers, in corporate spaces and through mainstream, barcode-bearing, retail products. In user discourses, this corporate spatiality translates into the imagined materializing of issues in products, investing commodities with the substance of an otherwise ethereal cause. This individualized, commodity-centric activism reinforces tenets of the neoliberal market, ultimately turning individual users into consumers not only of products, but also of the app itself. Thus, we suggest, the activist habitus constructed through Buycott is a neoliberal, consumer habitus.
mobile apps, ethical consumption, boycott, political consumerism, consumer activism, food citizenship
Conceptualizing ecobiosocial interactions: lessons from obesity
April 2016
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Journal article
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A Companion to the Anthropology of Environmental Health
Since the late 1990s, there has been increasing consensus that the global obesity epidemic is driven by environmental factors. Obesity is thus a good example of where human interaction with the environment can make and unmake health in many societies. In this chapter we examine frameworks designed to conceptualize the links between the environment and obesity. We focus on two frameworks of obesogenesis: that of the ‘obesogenic environment’, which was developed in the Asia-Pacific region, and the ‘obesity system’, which was developed in the UK. We describe the contexts in which these two frameworks were developed, and show how both synthesize environmental, biological and social factors. The frameworks reviewed suggest that obesity could be considered an ecobiosocial phenomenon. We then review anthropological understandings of human-environment interactions, and highlight that lived experience is not comprised of separate factors, but rather dynamic and interdependent processes. Elements of lived experience, such as social relations and historical change over time, are not fully captured by these two frameworks of obesity. Ecobiosocial frameworks informed by anthropological enquiry may be useful for describing obesity in future.
Framing obesity in United Kingdom policy from the Blair years, 1997-2015. The persistence of individualistic approaches despite overwhelming evidence of societal and economic factors, and the need for collective responsibility
April 2016
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Journal article
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Obesity Reviews
Since 1997, and despite several political changes, obesity policy in the UK has overwhelmingly framed obesity as a problem of individual responsibility. Reports, policies and interventions have emphasized that it is the responsibility of individual consumers to make personal changes to reduce obesity. The Foresight Report‘Tackling Obesities: Future Choices’ (2007) attempted to reframe obesity as a complex problem that required multiple sites of intervention well beyond the range of personal responsibility. This framing formed the basis for policy and coincided with increasing acknowledgement of the complex nature of obesity in obesity research. Yet policy and interventions developed following Foresight, such as the Change4Life social marketing campaign, targeted individual consumer behaviour. With the Conservative-Liberal Democrat government of 2011, intervention shifted to corporate and individual responsibility, making corporations voluntarily responsible for motivating individual consumers to change. This article examines shifts in the framing of obesity from a problem of individual responsibility, towards collective responsibility, and back to the individual in UK government reports, policies and interventions between 1997 and 2015. We show that UK obesity policies reflect the landscape of policymakers, advisors, political pressures and values, as much as, if not more than, the landscape of evidence. The view that the individual should be the central site for obesity prevention and intervention has remained central to the political framing of population-level obesity, despite strong evidence contrary to this. Power dynamics in obesity governance processes have remained unchallenged by the UK government, and individualistic framing of obesity policy continues to offer the path of least resistance.
individualism, policy, health governance, obesity, UK, consumption
Inequality and childhood overweight and obesity: a commentary
March 2016
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Journal article
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Pediatric Obesity
Statements on childhood overweight and obesity (COO) have focused on different avenues for prevention and treatment, critical stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy and lactation, individual, family, school and community-based interventions, multidisciplinary family programmes and multicomponent interventions. This commentary is concerned with the less-addressed relationship between COO and inequality. It describes current global patterns of inequality and COO and the ways in which those inequalities are linked to COO at micro-level, meso-level and macro-level. It then describes current programmatic approaches for COO inequality, preventive and medical, and considers important pitfalls in the framing of the problem of COO and inequality. It ends with describing how childhood and adolescent overweight and obesity prevention and treatment programmes might be formulated within broader socio-political frameworks to influence outcomes.
SBTMR, obesity, childhood, inequality, treatment
Low grandparental social support combined with low parental socioeconomic status is closely associated with obesity in preschool‐aged children: a pilot study
June 2015
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Journal article
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Pediatric Obesity
While the influence of parental socioeconomic status (SES) on children's weight status is well known, the impact of other family‐related aspects such as parental and grandparental social support is less understood. This study investigates the importance of parents' SES and social support (functional and structural) for weight status in a clinical sample of preschoolers 4–6 years old with obesity (n = 39, 56% girls; 73% of parents were overweight/obese, 50% were of non‐Swedish origin). Linear regression analyses, simple and multiple, were performed on SES and social support with child BMI SDS (body mass index standard deviation score) as the dependent variable. The results show that parents' income and low emotional support from paternal grandparents were significantly associated with more severe obesity. The association between parental income and the child's BMI SDS was stronger among parents who had low emotional support from their own parents. In conclusion, grandparental social support may be protective against childhood obesity.
social support, SBTMR, obesity, children, socioeconomic status
With the benefit of foresight: obesity, complexity and joined-up government
June 2015
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Journal article
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BioSocieties
Over a hundred factors are associated with obesity, and relationships among most of them were formalised in the Foresight Obesity Systems Map (FOSM) in 2007. This was a characterisation of population obesity in the United Kingdom at that time. The Foresight programme of different projects aimed to harness scientific evidence to the making of policy in a range of areas, obesity among them. An objective of this particular Foresight project was to ‘de-silo’ obesity policy by bringing together very diverse stakeholders, and to develop directives that recruited ‘joined-up’ government to the cause of obesity control. The Foresight process more generally was used to offer science-based solutions to complex problems. Obesity entered the sphere of complex problems that defied resolution that the Labour administration sought to deal with, along with inequality and climate change among others. The take-home message of the Foresight Obesities project was that the causes of obesity are embedded in an extremely complex biological system, set within an equally complex societal framework. While different forms of complexity have been argued for, the type of complexity favoured by Foresight was the one most commonly embraced, romantic, or upward-looking complexity that can be ordered at a more macro-level. This article describes the development of the FOSM and the process through which obesity policy and obesity research were reframed as complex problems.
SBTMR
Preface
May 2015
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Book
An anthropological insight into the Pacific island diabetes crisis and its clinical implications
May 2015
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Journal article
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Diabetes Management
SBTMR
Population Genetics: the study of the genetic structure of human populations
March 2015
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Chapter
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Population in the Human Sciences Concepts, Models, Evidence
The human sciences are disciplines in which people and their actions form the
object of study. While the nineteenth century gave us most of the conventional
rubrics into which the human sciences can be divided (human biology,
demography, ...
Population
An Introduction
March 2015
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Book
Population in the Human Sciences
March 2015
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Book
Social Aspects of Dietary Sugars
January 2015
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Chapter
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DIETARY SUGARS AND HEALTH
Obesity emergence in the Pacific islands: why understanding colonial history and social change is important
August 2014
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Journal article
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Public Health Nutrition
Between 1980 and 2008, two Pacific island nations - Nauru and the Cook Islands - experienced the fastest rates of increasing BMI in the world. Rates were over four times higher than the mean global BMI increase. The aim of the present paper is to examine why these populations have been so prone to obesity increases in recent times.Three explanatory frames that apply to both countries are presented: (i) geographic isolation and genetic predisposition; (ii) small population and low food production capacity; and (iii) social change under colonial influence. These are compared with social changes documented by anthropologists during the colonial and post-colonial periods.Nauru and the Cook Islands.While islands are isolated, islanders are interconnected. Similarly, islands are small, but land use is socially determined. While obesity affects individuals, islanders are interdependent. New social values, which were rapidly propagated through institutions such as the colonial system of education and the cash economy, are today reflected in all aspects of islander life, including diet. Such historical social changes may predispose societies to obesity.Colonial processes may have put in place the conditions for subsequent rapidly escalating obesity. Of the three frameworks discussed, social change under colonial influence is not immutable to further change in the future and could take place rapidly. In theorising obesity emergence in the Pacific islands, there is a need to incorporate the idea of obesity being a product of interdependence and interconnectedness, rather than independence and individual choice.
humans, Pacific Islands, SBTMR, obesity, diet, social change
From abject eating to abject being: Representations of obesity on 'Supersize vs. Superskinny'
August 2014
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Chapter
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Obesity, Eating Disorders and the Media
Research Protocol: The practice of medical humanitarian emergency: ethnography of practitioners’ response to nutritional crisis
July 2014
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Other
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Medecins sans Frontieres Field Research
Overall Aim: To describe and understand the human and technological factors that contribute to the constitution of emergency as a named and actionable entity in the context of medical humanitarianism. Primary Objective: To describe how individual and institutional attitudes, tools, discretion and practices influence identification and response to emergency. Secondary Objective: To document ambiguities, uncertainties or structural barriers that impede the identification of and response to emergency.
Research protocol, Complex Emergency, Medical Humanitarian Emergency, Ethnographic methods, Anthropology, methods and ethics
Do adult obesity rates in England vary by insecurity as well as by inequality? An ecological cross-sectional study
May 2014
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Journal article
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BMJ open
Geographical variations in adult obesity rates have been attributed in part to variations in social and economic inequalities. Insecurity is associated with obesity at the cross-national level, but there is little empirical evidence to show that insecurity contributes to the structuring of adult obesity rates at the subnational level. This is examined in this study across local authorities in England, using a recently developed social classification for the British population.Modelled obesity rates from the Health Survey for England 2006-2008 were related to social class (as estimated from the BBC's Great British Class Survey of 2011 and a nationally representative sample survey), across 320 local authorities in England.Comparisons of mean obesity rates across Z score categories for seven latent social classes were carried out using one-way analysis of variance. Pooled ordinary least square regression analyses of obesity rates by local authorities according to the proportion of different social classes within each of them were performed to determine the extent of geographical variations in obesity rates among the classes that were more greatly based on insecurity (emergent service workers, precariat), and those more closely based on inequality (elite, established middle class, technical middle class, new affluent workers, traditional working class).Adult obesity rates vary negatively across local authorities according to the proportion of people in the elite (F=39.06, p<0.001) and technical middle class (F=8.10, p<0.001) and positively with respect to the proportion of people of the established middle class (F=26.36, p<0.001), new affluent workers (F=73.03, p<0.001), traditional working class (F=23.00, p<0.001) and precariat (F=13.13, p<0.001). Social classes more closely based on inequality show greater association with adult obesity rates across local authorities than social classes more closely based on insecurity.Both insecurity and inequality are associated with the geographical patterning of adult obesity rates across England.
Introduction: Obesity, eating disorders and the media
January 2014
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Chapter
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Obesity, Eating Disorders and the Media
Obesity, eating disorders and the media
January 2014
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Book
How do the media represent obesity and eating disorders? How are these representations related to one another? And how do the news media select which scientific findings and policy decisions to report? Multi-disciplinary in approach, Obesity, Eating Disorders and the Media presents critical new perspectives on media representations of obesity and eating disorders, with analyses of print, online, and televisual media framings. Exploring abjection and alarm as the common themes linking media framings of obesity and eating disorders, Obesity, Eating Disorders and the Media shows how the media similarly position these conditions as dangerous extremes of body size and food practice. The volume then investigates how news media selectively cover and represent science and policy concerning obesity and eating disorders, with close attention to the influence of pre-existing framings alongside institutional and moral agendas. A rich, comprehensive analysis of media framings of obesity and eating disorders - as embodied conditions, complex disorders, public health concerns, and culturally significant phenomena - this volume will be of interest to scholars and students across the social sciences and all those interested in understanding cultural aspects of obesity and eating disorders.
Preface
January 2014
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Chapter
VARIATION IN HEIGHT AND BMI OF ADULT INDIANS
January 2014
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Journal article
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Journal of Biosocial Science
Predicting adult obesity from measures in earlier life.
December 2013
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Journal article
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J Epidemiol Community Health
BACKGROUND: As most obese adults were not overweight as children, the prediction of adult obesity from childhood body size alone is limited. We constructed a two-way, multifactor risk assessment framework for predicting adult obesity during childhood using the Foresight Obesity System Map and tested it against longitudinal data from the 1958 National Child Development Study. METHODS: The framework divided study participants according to two categories of risk: 'conditioning factors' (past/fixed events and conditions) and 'intervention factors' (present and modifiable). At the age of 11 years, conditioning factors were 'low/high birth weight' and 'absence of breastfeeding', and intervention factors were 'low childhood activity level' and 'having at least one obese parent'. From a composite score of all four variables, study participants were assigned to one of the four risk groups: low risk, past 'conditioning' risk only, present 'intervention' risk only and high combined risk. ORs and relative risks for the development of future overweight/obesity at ages 23, 33 and 42 years were calculated for each risk group. RESULTS: Those identified in the highest risk category at the age of 11 were around twice as likely to become overweight (body mass index (BMI)≥25 kg/m(2)) by the age of 23 years, and obese (BMI≥30 kg/m(2)) by ages 33 and 42 years, in comparison to their low-risk peers (total sample, N=11 752). Increased prevalence of future obesity was also observed for high-risk children who were not already overweight at the age of 11 (filtered sample, N=9549). CONCLUSIONS: This framework identifies a greater proportion of the population that is at risk for future obesity than does childhood weight assessment alone.
BIRTH WEIGHT, BREAST FEEDING, OBESITY, PAEDIATRIC, PHYSICAL ACTIVITY, Adult, Body Mass Index, Breast Feeding, Child, Preschool, Cohort Studies, Female, Humans, Infant, Male, Obesity, Odds Ratio, Predictive Value of Tests, Prevalence, Risk Assessment, Risk Factors, United Kingdom
The emergence of obesity among Australian Aboriginal children
December 2013
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Journal article
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Anthropological Review
Obesity is of significant and growing concern among Australian Aboriginal children, and is linked to patterns of child growth. The aim of this paper is to show diverse patterns of growth and obesity emergence among Australian Aboriginal children using historical anthropometric data. Child growth in height, weight and body mass index (BMI) is reanalysed for children aged 2 to 19 years in Australian Aboriginal communities spanning two distinct time periods (the 1950s and 1960s; and the 1990s and 2000s) and six different geographical locations: Yuendumu, Haast’s Bluff, Beswick, Kalumburu, Gerard, and Raukkan. Comparisons of stature and BMI between the earlier and later years of measurement were made, and the proportion of children classified as overweight or obese by the International Obesity Task Force criteria estimated, to allow international comparison. Aboriginal children in the 1990s and 2000s were heavier, with higher BMI than those in the 1950s and 1960s, differences in height being less marked. While no children were classified as overweight or obese in the earlier period, 15% of males and 3% of females were classified so in the later period. The data suggests that the period of onset of the epidemic of overweight and obesity among rural Australian Aboriginal children was likely to have been between the 1960s and 1980s.
SBTMR
Predicting adult obesity from measures in earlier life
October 2013
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Journal article
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Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health
Background As most obese adults were not overweight as children, the prediction of adult obesity from childhood body size alone is limited. We constructed a two-way, multifactor risk assessment framework for predicting adult obesity during childhood using the Foresight Obesity System Map and tested it against longitudinal data from the 1958 National Child Development Study. Methods The framework divided study participants according to two categories of risk: 'conditioning factors' (past/fixed events and conditions) and 'intervention factors' (present and modifiable). At the age of 11 years, conditioning factors were 'low/high birth weight' and 'absence of breastfeeding', and intervention factors were 'low childhood activity level' and 'having at least one obese parent'. From a composite score of all four variables, study participants were assigned to one of the four risk groups: low risk, past 'conditioning' risk only, present 'intervention' risk only and high combined risk. ORs and relative risks for the development of future overweight/obesity at ages 23, 33 and 42 years were calculated for each risk group. Results Those identified in the highest risk category at the age of 11 were around twice as likely to become overweight (body mass index (BMI)=25 kg/m2) by the age of 23 years, and obese (BMI=30 kg/m2) by ages 33 and 42 years, in comparison to their low-risk peers (total sample, N=11 752). Increased prevalence of future obesity was also observed for high-risk children who were not already overweight at the age of 11 (filtered sample, N=9549). Conclusions This framework identifies a greater proportion of the population that is at risk for future obesity than does childhood weight assessment alone.
Anorexia Nervosa
August 2013
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Journal article
<p>With its multidimensional etiology, rich history, and increasingly complex epidemiology, anorexia nervosa (from here on, referred to as “anorexia”) has emerged as a biocultural disorder of significance for medical anthropology. Anthropological work on anorexia was first published in the 1980s, with these initial engagements examining the Western cultural context wherein anorexia was known to be expressed. Over the decades, paradigm shifts in medical anthropology—from culture-bound syndromes and explanatory models of disease to analyses of globalization and ethnographies of the body and self—transitioned the anthropological discussion of anorexia away from “culture” and toward the critical analysis of practice, experience, and subjectivity. But the anthropological narrative of anorexia is even richer, having been informed by more than a century of multidisciplinary work: a vast corpus that constitutes an unlikely gathering of disciplines, all searching for the key to anorexia’s causation and course. Since its clinical definition in the 1870s, anorexia—a disorder of ambiguous and complex causation, with striking psychological, social, physiological, and behavioral manifestations—has been subject to myriad interpretations. In fields ranging from biomedical (including genetic and neuro-) science to the many schools of psychology, history, and feminist social theory, scholars have offered interpretations of anorexia, each addressing a facet of this condition. With historical analyses tracing anorexia through the 1800s and to pre-Enlightenment times, feminist analyses positioning anorexia as the embodiment of sociopolitical thought, and evolutionary and genetic analyses suggesting anorexia is the possible expression of adaptive traits, multidisciplinary work on anorexia has captured a complexity that is yet to be fully understood. It is this complexity, blurring the boundaries of body, society, history, and self, that makes anorexia so relevant for medical anthropology, its enduring ambiguities evoking the wholeness of the human experience that anthropological research seeks to explain. Given the nature of the anorexia literature on which anthropological research draws, this article does not highlight genres of publication: journals and textbooks dedicated to eating disorders tend to be exclusively clinical, emphasizing biomedical research and quantitative data analyses (rather than clinical case reports), such that they would not provide the most-salient references for anthropologists. The works featured in this article are divided, therefore, according to the analytic perspectives they express. Emphasis is placed on the history of thought on anorexia, while drawing out the salience of specific works for contemporary anthropological research.</p>
Intercontinental differences in overweight of adopted Koreans in the United States and Europe
July 2013
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Journal article
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Economics & Human Biology
One reason why waist-to-height ratio is usually better related to chronic disease risk and outcome than body mass index.
May 2013
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Journal article
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Int J Food Sci Nutr
The waist-to-height ratio (wtHR) has been proposed as an alternative to body mass index (BMI) as a simple anthropometric measure of body fatness. Both measures retain residual correlations with height, which causes them to over- or under-adjust for height (and thus misestimate nutritional state) when relating these measures to chronic disease risk, morbidity or mortality. The possibility that BMI has greater misadjustment than wtHR relative to waist/height (p) and weight/height (p) (where p is the optimal exponent for each population and sex group) is examined here. Analysis of anthropometric data for groups in Thailand, Papua New Guinea and Australia shows that this is the case, especially over-adjustment. This may contribute to the weaker relationships of chronic disease markers and outcomes with BMI than with wtHR.
Adipose Tissue, Aged, Anthropometry, Australia, Bias, Body Height, Body Mass Index, Body Weight, Chronic Disease, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Nutrition Assessment, Obesity, Papua New Guinea, Risk, Risk Factors, Thailand, Waist Circumference
Concluding remarks: what's in a name? "Negritos" in the context of the human prehistory of Southeast Asia
Concluding remarks: what's in a name? "Negritos" in the context of the human prehistory of Southeast Asia.
January 2013
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Journal article
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Hum Biol
The "negrito" hypothesis posits that various indigenous groups throughout Island and Mainland Southeast Asia have a shared phenotype due to common descent from a putative ancestral population, representing a pre-agricultural substrate of humanity in the region. This has been examined and tested many times in the past, with no clear resolution. With many new resources to hand, the articles in this volume reexamine this hypothesis in a range of different ways. The evidence presented in this double issue of Human Biology speaks more against the category of "negrito" than for it. While populations with the negrito phenotype form a small proportion of all contemporary populations in this region, they have remained a persistent presence. And without a fascination about their origins, there would not be such a depth of knowledge about the human biology of this region more broadly as there is now.
High fructose corn syrup and diabetes prevalence: a global perspective.
January 2013
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Journal article
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Glob Public Health
The overall aim of this study was to evaluate, from a global and ecological perspective, the relationships between availability of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and prevalence of type 2 diabetes. Using published resources, country-level estimates (n =43 countries) were obtained for: total sugar, HFCS and total calorie availability, obesity, two separate prevalence estimates for diabetes, prevalence estimate for impaired glucose tolerance and fasting plasma glucose. Pearson's correlations and partial correlations were conducted in order to explore associations between dietary availability and obesity and diabetes prevalence. Diabetes prevalence was 20% higher in countries with higher availability of HFCS compared to countries with low availability, and these differences were retained or strengthened after adjusting for country-level estimates of body mass index (BMI), population and gross domestic product (adjusted diabetes prevalence=8.0 vs. 6.7%, p=0.03; fasting plasma glucose=5.34 vs. 5.22 mmol/L, p=0.03) despite similarities in obesity and total sugar and calorie availability. These results suggest that countries with higher availability of HFCS have a higher prevalence of type 2 diabetes independent of obesity.
Adult, Aged, Body Mass Index, Cross-Cultural Comparison, Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2, Dietary Sucrose, Fructose, Global Health, Humans, Middle Aged, Obesity, Prevalence, Young Adult
The Unpredictable Species. What Makes Humans Unique.
January 2013
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Journal article
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JOURNAL OF BIOSOCIAL SCIENCE
When Culture Impacts Health: Global Lessons for Effective Health Research
Evolving Human Nutrition Implications for Public Health
October 2012
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Book
Exploration of changing human nutrition from evolutionary and social perspectives and its influence on health and disease, past and present.
Medical
Results of epidemiological studies of blood pressure are biased by continuous variation in arm size related to body mass.
August 2012
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Journal article
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Hum Biol
In cross-sectional epidemiological studies, blood pressure (BP) is often found to be positively correlated with fatness. Usually sphygmomanometers with only one cuff size for adults are used to measure BP while arm circumference (AC) influences BP readings. We have studied cross-sectional anthropometric and BP data of adult men and women from three populations: Cook Islanders (n = 259), Papua New Guinean: Purari (n = 295), and Ok Tedi (n = 274). These were selected because of their diverse socio-economic, anthropometric, and BP characteristics. Partial correlations and regressions were used to analyze these data. Systolic and diastolic pressures (SBP, DBP) showed dependence on AC, body mass index (BMI), and skinfold thickness. Stature had some effect on SBP and DBP, independent of BMI and AC. When effects of AC and stature were statistically controlled, BMI did not correlate with either SBP or DBP. People of larger body mass have greater AC, and this biases BP readings. Average values of SBP and DBP in groups of underweight, normal, overweight, and obese people predicted by AC (sex, age, and BMI being statistically controlled) closely matched observed SBP and DBP averages in those groups. Out of 24 pairwise comparisons (3 samples from different populations × 4 groups of BMI × 2 pressure readings) of predicted and actual BP, only two produced statistically significant differences while 21 of the differences were 5 mm Hg or less. Correlations between BP and obesity found in epidemiological studies may be severely biased by effects of variation in AC. Sphygmomanometric measurements of BP should be corrected for continuous variation in AC.
Adult, Arm, Bias, Blood Pressure Determination, Body Mass Index, Cross-Sectional Studies, Female, Humans, Hypertension, Male, Middle Aged, Obesity, Papua New Guinea, Polynesia, Regression Analysis, Skinfold Thickness
Insecurity, Inequality, and Obesity in Affluent Societies
April 2012
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Book
4408 Political Science, 44 Human Society, Obesity, Nutrition, Stroke, 10 Reduced Inequalities
Socio-economic status, forms of capital and obesity.
March 2012
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Journal article
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J Gastrointest Cancer
INTRODUCTION: While the relationships among socio-economic status (SES) and obesity are powerful and synergistic, the SES construct is insufficient to describe some of the cultural influences on status production in society, and therefore on obesity production. Socio-economic status has two closely related dimensions. The economic one is represented by financial wealth while the social one can incorporate education, occupational prestige, authority and community standing. These are, however, incomplete explanations for the relationships between societal inequalities and obesity. DISCUSSION: Cultural factors associated with SES and obesity are examined here by using Bourdieu and Boltanski's theory of practice, which links economic, social and cultural forms of capital (or value) in an overarching category of symbolic capital. These represent categories through which power relationships within society are negotiated. This construct permits a more complete examination of societal stratification and its human biological consequences and amplifiers, since it incorporates the notion of cultural value in different groups of, for example, preferences in body size and shape. The focus is primarily on the USA, although it draws on literature from elsewhere in the industrialized world where appropriate. Differences in obesity rates across major ethnic groups are discussed, because this is an area in which forms of capital differ, and may offer new insights into obesity and factors that predispose to it, as forms of symbolic capital.
Body Size, Culture, Economics, Food, Humans, Obesity, Social Class
Hungry City. How Food Shapes Our Lives
January 2012
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Journal article
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JOURNAL OF BIOSOCIAL SCIENCE
In Defence of Food. The Myth of Nutrition and the Pleasures of Eating
January 2012
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Journal article
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JOURNAL OF BIOSOCIAL SCIENCE
Late childhood and adolescence growth sensitivity to political transition: the case of South African Cape coloured schoolchildren during and post-apartheid
January 2012
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Journal article
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Anthropological Review
South Africa underwent major social and economic change between 1987 and 1995. The release of Nelson Mandela in February 1990 proclaimed an end to the political system of apartheid, and the first freely elected non-White government in 1994 instigated social and economic reforms aimed at alleviating the consequences of apartheid. This paper aims to examine the impact of these socio-economic and political changes on height, weight and body mass index (BMI) in childhood and late adolescence. An analysis was carried out of longitudinal data of 258 urban and rural South African Cape Coloured schoolchildren (6-18 years old) across the transitional periods from apartheid between 1987 and 1990, to this transition between 1991 and 1993, and finally to post-apartheid between 1994 and 1995. The anthropometric measures were standardized into age independent Z-scores. Analyses of variance with repeated measures were conducted to examine the growth in height, weight and BMI across these periods. The results show a significant main effect of measurement periods on height, weight and BMI Z-scores. Across time, the subjects increased in overall size, height, weight and BMI. For all the anthropometric measures there was a significant interaction effect between measurement period and sex, but none between measurement period and SES. The average increase in height, weight and BMI across time differed significantly for girls and boys, the average z-scores being greater in girls than in boys. For boys, there was little difference in height, weight and BMI Z-scores according to SES, and little increase across periods. Girls were generally taller, heavier with greater BMI than boys, and their scores increased across the time periods. High SES girls were taller, heavier and had higher BMI than low SES girls. Across the measurement periods, BMI and weight somewhat converged between the high and low SES girls. In the discussion these differences reflecting social sex distinctions are addressed.
SBTMR
Socio-economic Status, Forms of Capital and Obesity
January 2012
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Journal article
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Journal of Gastrointestinal Cancer
Stuffed & Starved. From Farm to Fork, the Hidden Battle for the World Food System
January 2012
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Journal article
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JOURNAL OF BIOSOCIAL SCIENCE
Childhood Obesity as an Amplifier of Societal Inequality in the United States
Waist-to-hip ratio and woman's education level as predictors of breastfeeding duration
June 2011
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Journal article
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Collegium Antropologicum
The possible existence of a relationship between breastfeeding duration, educational status and waist-hip ratio (WHR) as a measure of fertility and biological fitness in a sample of the Polish population is examined in this article. Data on age, height, weight, waist and hip circumferences, educational level (as a proxy for socio-economic status), and duration of breast feeding were collected for women using questionnaires in 11 outpatients' surgeries for healthy children, and in 5 general practices in three districts of Wroclaw, Poland. An ordinal multinominal linear model with logit link was used to determine the extent to which duration of lactation was influenced by maternal WHR and level of education. The best single predictor for the duration of lactation was WHR. While WHR decreases according to increasing duration of lactation for mothers with university or high school education, no such differences were observed among women at the lowest level of education. This study confirms the greater biological fitness of women with low WHR in the Polish population, and shows that this is mediated by level of educational attainment of the women.
Waist-to-hip ratio and woman's education level as predictors of breastfeeding duration.
June 2011
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Journal article
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Coll Antropol
The possible existence of a relationship between breastfeeding duration, educational status and waist-hip ratio (WHR) as a measure of fertility and biological fitness in a sample of the Polish population is examined in this article. Data on age, height, weight, waist and hip circumferences, educational level (as a proxy for socio-economic status), and duration of breast feeding were collected for women using questionnaires in 11 outpatients' surgeries for healthy children, and in 5 general practices in three districts of Wroclaw, Poland. An ordinal multinominal linear model with logit link was used to determine the extent to which duration of lactation was influenced by maternal WHR and level of education. The best single predictor for the duration of lactation was WHR. While WHR decreases according to increasing duration of lactation for mothers with university or high school education, no such differences were observed among women at the lowest level of education. This study confirms the greater biological fitness of women with low WHR in the Polish population, and shows that this is mediated by level of educational attainment of the women.
Adult, Breast Feeding, Educational Status, Female, Humans, Linear Models, Parity, Poland, Surveys and Questionnaires, Waist-Hip Ratio
Variation in Human Growth Patterns due to Environmental Factors
July 2010
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Chapter
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Human Evolutionary Biology
31 Biological Sciences, 32 Biomedical and Clinical Sciences, 3103 Ecology, Pediatric, Nutrition, Behavioral and Social Science, 2 Zero Hunger
Obesity under affluence varies by welfare regimes: The effect of fast food, insecurity and inequality
July 2010
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Journal article
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Economics and Human Biology
Among affluent countries, those with market-liberal welfare regimes (which are also English-speaking) tend to have the highest prevalence of obesity. The impact of cheap, accessible high-energy food is often invoked in explanation. An alternative approach is that overeating is a response to stress, and that competition, uncertainty, and inequality make market-liberal societies more stressful. This ecological regression meta-study pools 96 body-weight surveys from 11 countries c. 1994–2004. The fast-food ‘shock’ impact is found to work most strongly in market-liberal countries. Economic insecurity, measured in several different ways, was almost twice as powerful, while the impact of inequality was weak, and went in the opposite direction.
SBTMR
Human Variation From the Laboratory to the Field
March 2010
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Book
It holds two scientific meetings a year. This volume represents work presented during its most recent gathering.
Science
Body frame dimensions are related to obesity and fatness: Lean trunk size, skinfolds, and body mass index.
January 2010
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Journal article
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Am J Hum Biol
We explore relationships between BMI and skinfolds and anthropometric variables reflecting variation in lean body frame. Data on the middle class adult Australian women (n = 1260) collected in 2002 during a National Body Size and Shape Survey were used. Standard measurements of stature, weight, skeletal dimensions (shoulder width, hip width, chest width, and depth, limb lengths), circumferences of head, trunk, limbs and triceps, subscapular and abdominal skinfolds were taken. Techniques for measurements of skeletal frame minimized the inclusion of adipose tissue thickness. Analysis of variance and parametric and nonparametric correlations were used. Vertical dimensions show weak correlations with fatness, while body frame circumferences and transverse dimensions are consistently, significantly, and substantially correlated with fatness, each explaining from 3 to 44% of variation in skinfold thickness. Skeletal dimensions explain up to 50% of variation in skinfold thickness (multiple regression). Especially high correlations with skinfold thickness occur for chest width, depth, and hip width (r range from 0.42 to 0.66). Body frame dimensions reflect largely trunk volume and the trunk/limb proportions. Larger lean trunk size is associated with greater fatness. Since the size of the abdominal cavity, and thus the gastrointestinal system (GI), is reflected in the trunk size, we speculate that larger frame may predispose to obesity in two ways: (1) larger stomachs require greater bulk of food to produce feeling of satiety as mediated through antral distension, (2) larger GIs may absorb more nutrients. Frame size may help to detect the risk of obesity among young adults.
Adipose Tissue, Adolescent, Adult, Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Australia, Body Mass Index, Body Size, Female, Humans, Middle Aged, Obesity, Skinfold Thickness, Young Adult
Medical Anthropology. A Biocultural Approach.
January 2010
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Journal article
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JOURNAL OF BIOSOCIAL SCIENCE
Income level and food intake patterns among male bengalee slum dwellers in Kolkata, India
September 2009
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Journal article
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Malaysian Journal of Nutrition
This cross-sectional study explored the relationships between income levels and food intake patterns among slum dwellers in Kolkata, India. A total of 284 male subjects of Bengalee ethnicity participated in the study. The mean (SD) age, monthly family income and monthly per capita income of the subjects were 40.8 years (14.2), Indian Rupees (Rs.) 3259 (1574) and Rs. 700 (416) respectively. Potatoes, fresh vegetables, sweets and eggs were among the most frequently consumed food items on a daily basis. Butter, soft drinks, milk and ghee were least frequently consumed. The frequency of consumption of snacks, sweets and fruits showed strong significant correlations (p < 0.001). Principal component analysis of the frequency of consumption of different foods showed five components that explained a cumulative variance of 56%. Eigen values of components one to five were: 1.49 for fruit, sweets and snacks; 1.36 for fish and soft drinks; 1.16 for ghee and butter; 0.65 for fresh vegetables; and 1.02 for milk. Individually, these components explained 14, 12, 11, 10 and 9% of the variations respectively. Regression analyses showed monthly per capita income to be significantly associated with frequency of consumption of soft drinks (F = 6.79, p < 0.001) and fish (F = 7.90, p< 0.005). Age showed a significantly positive association with butter consumption (F = 9.41, p
Seasonality and Human Ecology
March 2009
|
Book
This book will be of interest to graduate students and researchers in human biology, anthropology and nutrition.
Science
Body frame dimensions can predict obesity: Body mass index, body frame and fatness
January 2009
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Journal article
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AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Food and Globalization. Consumption, Markets and Politics in the Modern World
January 2009
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Journal article
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JOURNAL OF BIOSOCIAL SCIENCE
Human Protein Requirements and Infection Stress among Young Children at the Origins of Agriculture
January 2008
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Conference paper
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MEDICINE AND EVOLUTION: CURRENT APPLICATIONS, FUTURE PROSPECTS
Seven models of population obesity.
January 2008
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Journal article
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Angiology
Obesity is new in human evolutionary history, having become possible at the population level with increased food security. As with any phenotype, obesity is at base an outcome of gene-environment interactions. However, different disciplines working in obesity research have identified different facets of the problem and developed different models of population obesity. These include those of thrifty genotypes, obesogenic behavior, obesogenic environments, nutrition transition, obesogenic culture, and biocultural interactions of genetics, environment, behavior, and culture. Although there is an overlap between various of these models, there remains a lack of consensus concerning obesity causation at the population level. This is a major problem in study of, and intervention in, obesity among populations.
Humans, Models, Biological, Obesity, Population Dynamics
The economics of climate change. The Stern review
January 2008
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Journal article
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JOURNAL OF BIOSOCIAL SCIENCE
Changes in BMI and the prevalence of overweight and obesity in children and adolescents in Cracow, Poland, 1971-2000.
December 2007
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Journal article
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Econ Hum Biol
The aim of this study is to examine changes in prevalence of overweight and obesity, using International Obesity Task Force criteria, in three cohorts of children and youth living in Cracow, Poland, in 1971, 1983 and 2000. Rates of overweight and obesity doubled among boys and girls, from 7.5% and 6.5% in 1971, to 15.2% and 11.8% in the year 2000. The greatest increases in prevalence occurred in the youngest age groups (7-12 years for boys and 7-10 years for girls), increases being less extensive among adolescents, and lowest of all in the oldest age groups (16-18 years in boys and 14-18 years in girls). The absence of a positive secular trend in BMI among adolescent females relative to males may be due to sociocultural pressures associated with transition to a free market economy in Poland. The extent to which girls attempt to achieve the ideal body, as portrayed by media and society more generally, increases across adolescence.
Adolescent, Attitude to Health, Body Image, Body Mass Index, Child, Female, Health Behavior, Humans, Male, Nutritional Status, Obesity, Overweight, Poland, Prevalence, Risk Factors, Sex Factors, Socioeconomic Factors
Frameworks of population obesity and the use of cultural consensus modeling in the study of environments contributing to obesity.
December 2007
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Journal article
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Econ Hum Biol
Obesity in Eastern Europe has been linked to privilege and status prior to the collapse of communism, and to exposure to free-market economics after it. Neither formulation is a complete explanation, and it is useful to examine the potential value of other models of population obesity for the understanding of this phenomenon. These include those of: thrifty genotypes; obesogenic behaviour; obesogenic environments; nutrition transition; obesogenic culture; and biocultural interactions of genetics, environment, behaviour and culture. At the broadest level, obesity emerges from the interaction of thrifty genotype with obesogenic environment. However, defining obesogenic environments remains problematic, especially in relation to sociocultural factors. Furthermore, since different identity groups may share different values concerning the obesogenicity of the environment, a priori assumptions about group homogeneity may lead to flawed interpretations of the importance of sociocultural factors in obesogenic environments. A new way to identify cultural coherence of groups and populations in relation to environments contributing to obesity is put forward here, that of cultural consensus modeling.
Adult, Culture, Europe, Eastern, Female, Genotype, Humans, Models, Economic, Nutritional Status, Obesity, Pilot Projects, Risk Factors, Social Environment, United Kingdom
Nutrition transition and dietary energy availability in Eastern Europe after the collapse of communism.
December 2007
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Journal article
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Econ Hum Biol
After the economic transition of the late 1980s and early 1990s there was a rapid increase in overweight and obesity in many countries of Eastern Europe. This article describes changing availability of dietary energy from major dietary components since the transition to free-market economic systems among Eastern European nations, using food balance data obtained at national level for the years 1990-92 and 2005 from the FAOSTAT-Nutrition database. Dietary energy available to the East European nations satellite to the former Soviet Union (henceforth, Eastern Europe) was greater than in the nations of the former Soviet Union. Among the latter, the Western nations of the former Soviet Union had greater dietary energy availability than the Eastern and Southern nations of the former Soviet Union. The higher energy availability in Eastern Europe relative to the nations of the former Soviet Union consists mostly of high-protein foods. There has been no significant change in overall dietary energy availability to any category of East European nation between 1990-1992 and 2005, indicating that, at the macro-level, increasing rates of obesity in Eastern European countries cannot be attributed to increased dietary energy availability. The most plausible macro-level explanations for the obesity patterns observed in East European nations are declines in physical activity, increased real income, and increased consumption of goods that contribute to physical activity decline: cars, televisions and computers.
Communism, Energy Intake, Energy Metabolism, Europe, Eastern, Humans, Motor Activity, Nutritional Status, Obesity, Politics, Risk Factors, Time Factors, USSR
Health Change in the Asia-Pacific Region
May 2007
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Book
An ecological analysis of child malnutrition in an Abelam community, Papua New
Guinea. Ph.D. thesis, Australian National University, Canberra. Ulijaszek, S.J. (
1995). Development, modernisation and health intervention. In Health
Intervention in Less Developed Nations, ed. S.J. Ulijaszek. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, pp. 82–136. (1997). Modernization, nutritional status and
hypertension in a rural Papua New Guinea population (abstract). Annals of
Human Biology 24, 281. (2001) ...
Science
Obesity: a disorder of convenience.
March 2007
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Journal article
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Obes Rev
Anthropology, Cultural, Biological Evolution, Body Size, Environment, Humans, Obesity
On the social, the biological—and the political: revisiting Beatrice Blackwood’s research and teaching
January 2007
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Chapter
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Holistic Anthropology
The effects of fatness and fat distribution on respiratory functions.
January 2007
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Journal article
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Ann Hum Biol
BACKGROUND: Inverse relationships between respiratory function and indices of obesity and fat distribution have been reported, but it remains unclear which measure of obesity shows the strongest relationship with lung function. AIM: The study assessed the effect of fatness and fat distribution on respiratory function. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: A sample of 423 males and 509 females aged 40-50 years were examined in the Silesian Centre for Preventive Medicine, DOLMED, in Wrocław in 1995. The strength of influence of height, body mass index (BMI), wait-to-hip ratio (WHR) and abdominal and subscapular skinfolds upon forced vital capacity (FVC) and forced expiratory volume in a 1-s expiration (FEV1) was assessed by multiple regression analysis. RESULTS: In males, FVC was strongly positively associated with height and BMI, but negatively associated with subscapular and abdominal skinfolds, WHR, and smoking. FEV1 showed a positive relationship with height, BMI and WHR. In females, both FVC and FEV1 showed significant positive associations with height, negative ones with subscapular skinfold, and no association with either WHR or abdominal skinfold. In males, respiratory function is affected to a similar extent by fat in the abdominal region and by fatness of the chest. In females, fatness of the thorax has the strongest relationship with respiratory function. CONCLUSION: Fatness tends to impair respiratory function in both sexes but these effects show a different pattern in males and females. In males, respiratory functions are significantly, and to a similar extant, affected by fatness in the abdominal region, both subcutaneous and visceral, and by fatness on the chest. In females, it is primarily subcutaneous fat on the upper thorax that affects respiratory functions, while visceral and subcutaneous abdominal fatness play little or no role.
Adiposity, Adult, Body Fat Distribution, Body Weights and Measures, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Respiration, Respiratory Function Tests, Sex Factors
The international growth standard for children and adolescents project: environmental influences on preadolescent and adolescent growth in weight and height.
December 2006
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Journal article
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Food Nutr Bull
This review has two aims. The first is to identify important environmental influences on the growth of children aged 1 to 9 years and of adolescents, defined as those aged 10 to 19 years. The second is to identify possible environmentally based criteria for the selection of individuals and populations for data collection in the development of an international growth reference for these age ranges. There are many common environmental influences on the growth of children between the ages of 1 and 19 years; the examination and description of these forms the main body of this review. Subsequently, environmental factors influencing adolescent growth only are considered. In both cases, possible selection criteria are put forward. The most important inclusion criteria for both preadolescence and adolescence are good nutrition, lack of infection, and socioeconomic status that does not constrain growth. Additionally, low birthweight, catchup growth, breastfeeding, and early adiposity rebound have impacts on growth and/or body composition into puberty. Exclusion of children born at low birth and/or experiencing catch-up growth could be most realistically operationalized if populations in which secular trends in growth were either completed or minimal were selected. Although an effect of hypoxia on child and adolescent growth, independent of nutrition, is small at most, many high-altitude populations have high prevalances of low birthweight and should be excluded on this basis. Since all populations are exposed to pollutants, contaminants, and toxicants in varying degrees, they cannot be realistically excluded from the sample frame. However, it may be desirable to exclude populations that are habitually exposed to extremely high levels of environmental pollution, including air pollution, and those living in close proximity to toxic waste. It is impossible to exclude populations and individuals on the basis of their exposure to aflatoxin contamination of food. However, exclusion on the basis of low socioeconomic status or poverty may well act as a proxy for this. There are a small number of populations that show extreme patterns of growth in body size and proportion in preadolescence and adolescence, and these should be excluded from the sample frame.
Adolescent, Adolescent Development, Body Height, Body Weight, Child, Child Development, Child, Preschool, Environment, Female, Growth, Humans, Infant, Male, Reference Standards, Reference Values, Social Class, Socioeconomic Factors
32 Biomedical and Clinical Sciences, 3210 Nutrition and Dietetics
The International Growth Standard for Children and Adolescents Project: Environmental influences on preadolescent and adolescent growth in weight and height
The International Growth Standard for Children and Adolescents Project: Environmental influences on preadolescent and adolescent growth in weight and height
Population, reproduction and fertility in Melanesia
December 2005
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Book
Human biological fertility was considered a important issue to anthropologists and colonial administrators in the first part of the 20th century, as a dramatic decline in population was observed in many regions. However, the total demise of Melanesian populations predicted by some never happened; on the contrary, a rapid population increase took place for the second part of the 20th century. This volume explores relationships between human fertility and reproduction, subsistence systems, the symbolic use of ideas of fertility and reproduction in linking landscape to individuals and populations, in Melanesian societies, past and present. It thus offers an important contribution to our understanding of the implications of social and economic change for reproduction and fertility in the broadest sense.
Purari population decline and resurgence across the twentieth century
December 2005
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Chapter
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Population, Reproduction and Fertility in Melanesia
Anthropometry The Individual and the Population
September 2005
|
Book
Anthropometry is the measurement of human morphology. This book discusses its uses and problems.
Science
Changing patterns of social variation in stature in Poland: effects of transition from a command economy to the free-market system?
July 2005
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Journal article
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J Biosoc Sci
The aim of this analysis was to examine the effects on stature in two nationally representative samples of Polish 19-year-old conscripts of maternal and paternal education level, and of degree of urbanization, before and after the economic transition of 1990. Data were from two national surveys of 19-year-old Polish conscripts: 27,236 in 1986 and 28,151 in 2001. In addition to taking height measurements, each subject was asked about the socioeconomic background of their families, including paternal and maternal education, and the name of the locality of residence. The net effect of each of these social factors on stature was determined using four-factor analysis of variance. The secular trend towards increased stature of Polish conscripts has slowed down from a rate 2.1 cm per decade across the period 1965-1986 to 1.5 cm per decade between 1986 and 2001. In both cohorts, mean statures increase with increasing size of locality of residence, paternal education and maternal education. The effect of each of these three social factors on conscript height is highly significant in both cohorts. However, the effect of maternal education has increased substantially while that of size of locality of residence and paternal education diminished between 1986 and 2001. These results imply that the influence of parental education on child growth cannot be due solely to a relationship between education and income, but is also perhaps a reflection of household financial management which benefits child health and growth by better educated parents, regardless of level of income. In addition they suggest that, irrespective of whether there are one or two breadwinners in the family, it is the mother, more so than the father, who is principally responsible for the extent to which such management best favours child health and growth. The asymmetry between the importance of maternal as against paternal education for child growth, clearly seen in the 1986 cohort, became more accentuated in 2001, after the abrupt transition from a command to a free-market economy in the early 1990s.
Adult, Body Height, Educational Status, Female, Humans, Male, Parents, Poland, Social Change, Urbanization
Biocultural perspectives on food security in Papua New Guinea
January 2005
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Journal article
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AMERICAN JOURNAL OF HUMAN BIOLOGY
Village distance from urban centre as the prime modernization variable in differences in blood pressure and body mass index of adults of the Purari delta of the Gulf Province, Papua New Guinea.
January 2005
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Journal article
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Ann Hum Biol
OBJECTIVE: The study examined the extent to which the geographical proximity of villages to an urban centre and other modernization variables are associated with variation in blood pressure and body mass index (BMI) of adults of the Purari delta of the Gulf Province, Papua New Guinea (PNG). METHODS: Mean BMI, systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) of 292 adults surveyed in 1995-1997 in the Purari delta, PNG, are reported by village of residence, and related to modernization variables, including village of residence, urban life, urban connectedness, economic status and education. RESULTS: Mean BMI, SBP and DBP differ according to village of residence, there being a gradient in mean blood pressure from highest in the village closest to the urban centre, Baimuru, and lowest in the village most distant from it. The gradients in these variables across the three villages are not due to differences in age structures between the villages. Place of residence, which represents the distance from town, has the greatest impact on the BMI of males, while among the females, the number of relatives living in urban centres had a significant effect on BMI. For both males and females, place of residence has the strongest effect on SBP. While for the males, place of residence is the only significant factor associated with SBP, for the females, SBP is also associated with BMI, level of income and to a lesser extent with age. Very similar results were obtained for DBP. CONCLUSIONS: Distance to urban centre appears to have a strong effect, relative to other modernization variables, on BMI and blood pressure, this effect being far stronger for males than for females. In large part, this effect operates by way of differences in number of sources of income as well as number of close relatives of women who are resident in an urban centre. Reasons for the male-female differences observed may include gender differences in degree of mobility, and possibly greater physical sensitivity of males to the environment than females. Traditionally, there have been clear divisions of labour between males and females, the latter spending longer in subsistence activities than the former. It is speculated that males have more free time to travel to town should they wish, while women may travel to town to take produce to market, and be limited by how much time they spend in town when they are there, by the need to return to carry out household and subsistence tasks. It may also be that young adult males are more susceptible to modernization, in that they exhibit a greater degree of non-conformity than young women, and may be more favourably disposed to adopt aspects of western lifestyle.
Adult, Blood Pressure, Body Mass Index, Female, Humans, Life Style, Male, Middle Aged, Papua New Guinea, Residence Characteristics, Rural Population, Sex Factors, Socioeconomic Factors
Intra-individual variation in RMR in older people.
March 2004
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Journal article
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Br J Nutr
In the factorial estimation of total energy expenditure it is assumed that the intra-individual variation in RMR is small. Little is known about the intra-individual variation in RMR in older subjects. The present study investigated the intra-individual variation in RMR in older people. Measurements of RMR were made in twenty-seven older subjects, mean age 71.6 (sd 6.1) years, on two separate occasions (T1 and T2) and on a third occasion (T3) in nineteen of the subjects. Measurements of height and weight were taken in all subjects. RMR measurements were made in the laboratory using a Deltatrac (ventilated-hood indirect calorimeter; Datex, Helsinki, Finland). All subjects had fasted overnight for 12 h and refrained from strenuous exercise before measurements. The intra-individual CV in RMR (kJ/d) after T1 and T2 was 2.5 % in women and 3.6 % in men and was 2.6 % in women and 3.4 % in men after all three sets of measurements. Although mean RMR did not vary across T1, T2 and T3, there was significant "crossing tracks" across the three measurement occasions in some individuals, reflecting a high degree of within-subject variability. The methods used had a significant measurement error associated with them (high R value; significant F ratio in three-way ANOVA). In conclusion, the results from the present study indicate that intra-individual variation in RMR was low in older people. The intra-individual variation in the elderly is similar to that seen in younger age groups.
Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Aging, Analysis of Variance, Anthropometry, Basal Metabolism, Calorimetry, Indirect, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Reference Values, Reproducibility of Results
Dietary intake methods in the anthropology of food and nutrition
January 2004
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Chapter
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Researching Food Habits: Methods and Problems
The quest for food. Its role in human evolution and migration.
January 2004
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Journal article
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JOURNAL OF BIOSOCIAL SCIENCE
Introduction. Auxology: spanning mechanism and measurement.
January 2003
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Journal article
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Homo : internationale Zeitschrift fur die vergleichende Forschung am Menschen
Maternal work and childhood nutritional status among the Purari, Papua New Guinea.
January 2003
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Journal article
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Am J Hum Biol
In traditional economies, body size, physical work capacity, subsistence productivity, and nutrition of adults may be interrelated, and one cross-generational effect of these relationships may operate through the household, influencing nutritional status of children. In this analysis, the relationships among adult body size, work productivity in terms of time spent making sago starch, dietary diversity, nutrient availability, and childhood nutritional status are examined in the Purari population of Papua New Guinea, a group largely dependent on the starchy staple palm sago, which is devoid of all nutrients apart from energy. Observations of work scheduling, household food and nutrient availability, and nutritional status were carried out for 16 women, their households, and their children. A multiple regression model of hours spent in sago making on a particular day with days spent in other subsistence activities showed a negative relationship with the number of days spent in sago-making and a positive relationship with the number of days spent fishing. The number of hours spent in sago-making on a particular day was also positively related to daily per capita availability of protein at the household level. This is not a function of maternal nutritional status, however, since there is no association between body size of adult females and the number of hours spent making sago on a particular day. Nor does the greater per capita protein availability at the household level in households where women spend longer on a particular day in sago-making result in improved childhood nutritional status. Since relationships among adult body size, work productivity, dietary diversity, nutrient availability, and childhood nutritional status are only partially demonstrated in this population, it may be that these linkages may only be important if physically arduous work is needed more consistently than is the case in the Purari delta.
Agriculture, Anthropometry, Child, Child Nutritional Physiological Phenomena, Child, Preschool, Efficiency, Energy Intake, Family Characteristics, Female, Food Supply, Humans, Infant, Infant, Newborn, Mothers, Nutritional Status, Papua New Guinea, Plants, Work
Obesity: Preventing and managing the global epidemic.
January 2003
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Journal article
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JOURNAL OF BIOSOCIAL SCIENCE
Socio-economic factors associated with physique of adults of the Purari delta of the Gulf Province, Papua New Guinea.
January 2003
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Journal article
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Ann Hum Biol
OBJECTIVE: To examine in detail the relationships between components of the modernization process, including experience of urban life, urban connectedness, education, and the nature and diversity of income sources on adult body size in a Papua New Guinea (PNG) population. METHODS: Mean height, weight and body mass index (BMI) of 292 adults surveyed in 1995-97 in the Purari delta, PNG, are reported by age group, and related to modernization variables including urban life, urban connectedness, economic status and education. RESULTS: With respect to BMI, 23% of males and 24% of females had a BMI greater than 25, while 1% of males and 6% of females had a BMI greater than 30. There were also significant numbers of undernourished individuals, especially among the females, where 13% had BMI below 18.5, compared with 5% of males with BMI below this level. Mean stature of younger adults is greater than that of older adults. For the males, height, weight and BMI are all negatively associated with age-squared, and positively associated with income. Weight is also positively associated with having urban relatives, but not with having lived in any urban centre. For the females, height is positively associated with age-squared, weight is positively associated with both income and number of years of education, while BMI is positively associated with income, and with having urban relatives, but not with urban dwelling per se. CONCLUSIONS: The secular trend toward increasing height may have been underway since the 1950s. Income level, number of years of education and having urban relatives emerge as core factors influencing body size and fatness in the Purari population.
Adolescent, Adult, Aged, Anthropometry, Body Mass Index, Child, Educational Status, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, New Guinea, Nutritional Status, Population Surveillance, Sex Factors, Socioeconomic Factors, Time Factors, Urban Population
Transnationalism and nutritional health of Cook Islanders.
January 2003
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Journal article
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ANTHROPOLOGICAL SCIENCE
Trends in body size, diet and food availability in the Cook Islands in the second half of the 20th century.
January 2003
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Journal article
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Econ Hum Biol
The body size of adult Cook Islanders on Rarotonga for the years 1952, 1966 and 1996 has been increasing. The rate of increase in stature of women aged 20-39 years was 0.5cm per decade across the period 1952-1966, and 0.8cm per decade for the period 1966-1996. The rate of increase of weight in the 20-29 years age group was 0.6kg per decade in period 1, and 7.3kg per decade in period 2. In the age group 30-39 years, the rates were 3.2kg per decade and 5.1kg per decade respectively. Changing food availability for the period 1961-2000 is used to compare estimates of dietary energy availability with estimates of physiological energy requirements. There has been reduced availability of traditional staples, a likely reduction in consumption of fish, increased consumption of meat, and a decline in the availability of dietary fats and oils. Daily per capita energy intakes in 1952 and 1966 greatly exceed an hypothetical physiological maximum value for energy expenditure, suggesting a large positive energy balance in 1952 and an even greater one in 1966, both predisposing to weight gain. Although daily per capita energy availability in 1996 is similar to the hypothetical physiological maximum value for energy expenditure, it exceeds the measured level of energy expenditure at that time. It is speculated that excessive energy intake relative to requirement is more likely to predispose to positive energy balance and weight gain than decline in energy expenditure, although to a lower extent than in 1966 and 1952.
Adult, Anthropometry, Body Size, Diet, Energy Metabolism, Female, Food Supply, History, 20th Century, Humans, Middle Aged, Nutritional Status, Obesity, Polynesia
Human eating behaviour in an evolutionary ecological context.
November 2002
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Journal article
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Proc Nutr Soc
Present-day human eating behaviour in industrialised society is characterised by the consumption of high-energy-density diets and often unstructured feeding patterns, largely uncoupled from seasonal cycles of food availability. Broadly similar patterns of feeding are found among advantaged groups in economically-emerging and developing nations. Such patterns of feeding are consistent with the evolutionary ecological understanding of feeding behaviour of hominids ancestral to humans, in that human feeding adaptations are likely to have arisen in the context of resource seasonality in which diet choice for energy-dense and palatable foods would have been selected by way of foraging strategies for the maximisation of energy intake. One hallmark trait of human feeding behaviour, complex control of food availability, emerged with Homo erectus (1.9 x 10(6)-200000 years ago), who carried out this process by either increased meat eating or by cooking, or both. Another key trait of human eating behaviour is the symbolic use of food, which emerged with modern Homo sapiens (100000 years ago to the present) between 25000 and 12000 years ago. From this and subsequent social and economic transformations, including the origins of agriculture, humans have come to use food in increasingly elaborate symbolic ways, such that human eating has become increasingly structured socially and culturally in many different ways.
Animals, Behavior, Biological Evolution, Culture, Diet, Eating, Ecology, Energy Intake, Energy Metabolism, Hominidae, Humans, Social Behavior
Serum insulin-like growth factor-I, insulin-like growth factor binding protein-3, and the pubertal growth spurt in the female rhesus monkey.
May 2002
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Journal article
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Am J Phys Anthropol
While there is good evidence suggesting IGF-I links to pubertal development and crown-rump length growth among rhesus monkeys, linkages between IGF-I and other measures of morphological growth have not been established. In this study, the pubertal growth spurt in a number of morphological characteristics of female rhesus monkeys is related to serum endocrine status of insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) and its binding protein, insulin-like growth factor binding protein-3 (IGFBP-3), to test the hypothesis that elevations in IGF-I and IGFBP-3 coincide with the time of greatest growth rate of different morphological characteristics. A longitudinal study of pubertal growth among four female rhesus monkeys was carried out across a 3-year period. Morphometric measurements included weight, crown-rump length, foot-length, and skinfolds at five sites (biceps, triceps, abdominal, subscapular, and suprailiac). These measures were taken as being representative of total mass, skeletal growth of the trunk and head, limb length, and body fatness, respectively. Measurements were carried out as closely as possible to 3-monthly, with interpolations being performed to standardise the data to exactly 3-monthly intervals for all individuals. Blood samples were taken at time of morphometry. Elevations in serum IGF-I and IGFBP-3 took place in a manner similar to that of humans, and across the period associated with onset of puberty. Mean 3-monthly gain in crown-rump length and foot length showed significant peaks across the measurement period, while mean 3-monthly gains in weight and sum of five skinfolds did not. Greatest foot length gain occurred on average between 3-3.5 years of age, while crown-rump length gain was greatest between 3.75-4 years of age. Periods of greatest gain in crown-rump length and foot length took place across the period of elevated serum IGF-I levels, which was between 3-4.5 years of age. Significant elevations in IGF-I and IGFBP-3 were not coincident with greatest gains in foot length or crown-rump length. Thus the hypothesis does not hold true for the two measures showing significant peaks in 3-monthly gain across the measurement period. The nature of the endocrine impact on macaque morphology remains unclear, although this may be fundamental to the understanding of the variation in the pubertal growth spurt and its influence on morphology at maturity both within and across primate species.
Animals, Biometry, Body Constitution, Female, Insulin-Like Growth Factor Binding Protein 3, Insulin-Like Growth Factor I, Macaca mulatta
Comparative energetics of primate fetal growth.
January 2002
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Journal article
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Am J Hum Biol
Among the primates, Homo sapiens has evolved a life history which includes long gestation, relatively slow growth to reproductive maturity, and large body size. While the slow growth rate may be linked to the energetic demands of having a large brain, there are other important morphological and physiological linkages that may be adaptive, including the development of significant fat stores with which to buffer against episodic and periodic energetic stress. In this comparative analysis of the energetic burden of pregnancy among primates (including humans), the daily energy investment in the development of neonatal tissue is modeled. During pregnancy, larger primates, notably the Hominidae, invest a smaller proportion of their maternal daily nonmaintenance energy budget in fetal tissue with increasing energy budget, allowing diverse adaptations, including foraging strategies which include folivory and mixed patterns of food getting, and meat consumption. Humans have a similar proportion of maternal daily nonmaintenance energy budget invested in fetal tissue with increasing energy budget to other apes and have a diet which is of much higher quality than predicted for body size and metabolic needs. The combination of high diet quality and low proportion of maternal daily nonmaintenance energy budget invested in fetal tissue allows greater brain size relative to body weight at birth compared with all other primates, apart from chimpanzees, and higher birthweight and body fatness at birth for a given body size than other primate species.
Analysis of Variance, Animals, Cebidae, Cercopithecidae, Embryonic and Fetal Development, Energy Metabolism, Female, Hominidae, Humans, Hylobatidae, Pregnancy, Primates
Energetics and evolution: an emerging research domain.
January 2002
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Journal article
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Am J Hum Biol
The study of energetics is important to human biology because the availability and utilization of food energy influence health, survival, and reproduction. Over the last decade, human biologists, biological anthropologists, and other evolutionary scientists have increasingly come to recognize the importance of energy dynamics in shaping evolutionary processes. Thus far, different lines of energetics research have been conducted largely in isolation from one another. This thematic collection examines topics of evolutionary energetics from several different perspectives, drawing together research from human paleontology, comparative primate and mammalian biology, human population biology, and mathematical modeling. It represents a starting point for further integrative research on human evolutionary energetics.
Animals, Biological Evolution, Energy Metabolism, Female, Hominidae, Humans, Male, Mammals, Models, Biological, Physiology, Comparative, Population Dynamics
Feeding a world population of more than eight billion people. A challenge to science.
January 2002
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Journal article
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JOURNAL OF BIOSOCIAL SCIENCE
Human biology and social inequality.
January 2002
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Journal article
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JOURNAL OF BIOSOCIAL SCIENCE
Intergenerational transmission of health. Reproductive health of mother and child survival in Kerala, South India.
January 2002
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Journal article
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JOURNAL OF BIOSOCIAL SCIENCE
Modernization and the diet of adults on Rarotonga, the Cook Islands
January 2002
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Journal article
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Ecology of Food and Nutrition
Populations in the Pacific region have shown a clear rise in overweight and obesity across the second part of the twentieth century, this increase being attributed to economic modernization and the dietary change that has gone with it. This study examined the relationships between socioeconomic factors and dietary intakes of adult Cook Islanders living a largely modernized lifestyle on Rarotonga, the Cook Islands. A cross-sectional volunteer sample of 379 Cook Islanders aged 22 to 86 years estimated their habitual food intake by short food frequency questionnaire. Of the modernization variables examined, the number of years of education was most consistently associated with diet, male Cook Islanders with more years of education having a lower frequency of consumption of traditional staple foods than those with fewer years of education. Females with more years of education had an apparently higher frequency of alcohol consumption relative to those with fewer years of education. Adults born on Rarotonga ate fresh fish significantly less often than those born elsewhere in the Cook Islands, while males ate imported staple foods more frequently than did females. There are statistically significant associations between the frequency of consumption of a triad of traditional food items: coconut, fresh fish, and traditional staple foods, suggesting that core patterns of traditional food consumption remain strong and similar for both males and females. Subtle differences in food habits between the sexes, outside of the traditional core food consumption habits, include the regular incorporation of imported meat and fish in the triad of traditional food items by women, but not men. For the men, the frequency of consumption of fresh fish is negatively associated with the frequency of consumption of imported meat and fish, suggesting that the latter food category often displaces the consumption of fresh fish in the triad of traditional food items habitually eaten by them.
Anthropometry of two contrasting populations of Thai elderly living in a rural setting.
November 2001
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Journal article
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Archives of gerontology and geriatrics
This study presents anthropometric data on 192 elderly males and 342 elderly females from two contrasting population settings in rural Thailand. Sixty per cent of the subjects lived in with relatives and 40% in a residential home. The elderly population in the present study had BMI values of 21 kg/m(2) for men and 22-23 kg/m(2) for women. Due to different age distributions in the two groups studied, the anthropometric values were adjusted for age. There was a negative correlation between age and weight for men and women at both sites. Both males and females were shorter with smaller armspan in the residential home. There were significant differences in the distribution of adipose tissue, after adjustment for age, between the two communities. Men in the residential home had larger waist circumference, triceps and biceps skinfold thicknesses but smaller subscapular skinfold thicknesses than the men in the rural community. Women in the residential home were heavier with larger biceps and triceps skinfold thicknesses and smaller arm circumferences than the women in the rural community. The elderly in the residential home had a general reduction in body fat with age, unlike the elderly in the rural community who showed a decrease in mainly peripheral fat. The likely impact of lifestyle and feeding practices in the two sites on body composition is also discussed.
Potential seasonal ecological challenge of heat strain among Australian Aboriginal people practicing traditional subsistence methods: a computer simulation.
November 2001
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Journal article
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Am J Phys Anthropol
It has been largely accepted that Australian Aboriginal people practicing hunting and gathering traditionally underused their objective economic possibilities by working short hours relative to nonhunter-gatherer populations. However, the possibility that their subsistence quest might have been limited by potential heat strain has not been considered for Australian hunter-gatherers. In this article the influence of work and heat load on the potential for heat strain among adult male Australian Aboriginal people is modelled. The possibility that the short working day of Arnhem Land adults reported in the literature might reflect ecologically limited work scheduling by way of potential heat strain is examined. Three climatic regions of the North of Western Australia and the Northern Territory were identified, using data available from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. Data from the months of January, April, July, and October were used with the United States Army Heat Strain Model, along with assumptions with respect to work load and time scheduling. Predictive modelling indicates that a late start to the working day could carry considerable risks of potential heat strain during the summer, when humidity and maximum daily temperature are highest for all three climatic regions, but especially in the tropical coastal region. While extended work times may have been needed to acquire adequate food under traditional conditions, work output could have been limited by potential heat strain under some conditions likely to have prevailed.
Adaptation, Physiological, Agriculture, Australia, Computer Simulation, Diet, Ecology, Heat Stress Disorders, Humans, Humidity, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, Seasons, Temperature
Body size and physical activity levels of adults on Rarotonga, the Cook Islands.
September 2001
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Journal article
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Int J Food Sci Nutr
Few studies of physical activity and energy expenditure have been carried out in the Pacific Region. In this study, the physical activity levels (PALs) of adult Cook Islanders living a largely modernised lifestyle by age group and occupation category were determined by a 3 day activity recall diary method. The period of observation included the previous Sunday, as a representative non-working day. A volunteer sample of 332 Cook Islanders aged 22 to 86 years was obtained from the total adult population of Rarotonga. Older adults are significantly less active than younger adults during the working week, but not during the weekend. Males are more physically active than females during the working week, but not on weekends. The mean weekday PAL of males engaged in traditional subsistence or who are unemployed is 1.88, while the mean weekday PAL of females engaged in traditional subsistence or who are housewives is 1.69. Male manual workers have a weekday PAL of 1.96, while female manual workers have a weekday PAL of 1.67. The weekday PAL values for those employed in clerical and administrative work are 1.82 (males) and 1.64 (females), while values for professionals are 1.76 (males) and 1.65 (females). Weekday physical activity is negatively associated with age, in nonlinear fashion. The PALs of adult Cook Islanders living a largely modernised lifestyle is lower in older age groups but does not vary by occupation category.
Adult, Age Factors, Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Analysis of Variance, Body Constitution, Body Mass Index, Energy Metabolism, Exercise, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Occupations, Pacific Islands, Regression Analysis, Sex Factors
Waiting for Trivers and Willard: do the rich really favor sons?
May 2001
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Journal article
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Am J Phys Anthropol
Parental investment theory has been put forward as a major evolutionary argument explaining male or female biased birth sex ratio, the Trivers-Willard (T-W) hypothesis, predicting that parents living in good circumstances will bias their investment to sons, whereas parents in poor circumstances will bias their investment toward daughters. Tests of the T-W hypothesis on human beings have shown limited evidence for parents appearing to differentiate their investment to sons or daughters according to the reproductive potential of each sex. The present study tests the T-W hypothesis among a large contemporary Polish sample using first birth interval and extent of breastfeeding as measures of parental investment, and economic status and level of parental education as measures of parental condition. The extents to which parental investment and markers of parental condition vary by sex of the child were examined using log-linear analysis. Weak support for the T-W effect is found among families where fathers were best educated, where a greater proportion of first-born boys are breastfed longer than girls, while the opposite trend is observed among families with fathers with lowest levels of education. Although the present study does not fully support the T-W hypothesis, it gives evidence of greater investment in female offspring at the lower extremes of income, and greater investment in males at higher levels of income.
Adult, Anthropology, Cultural, Breast Feeding, Educational Status, Female, Humans, Infant, Infant, Newborn, Male, Models, Theoretical, Parent-Child Relations, Poverty, Prejudice, Sex Ratio, Social Class, Time Factors
Work and climate in traditional subsistence economies.
March 2001
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Journal article
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J Physiol Anthropol Appl Human Sci
Anthropology, Cultural, Climate, Developing Countries, Ethnicity, Humans, Seasons, Work
Building a new biocultural synthesis. Political-economic perspectives on human biology.
January 2001
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Journal article
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JOURNAL OF BIOSOCIAL SCIENCE
Increasing body size among adult cook islanders between 1966 and 1996.
January 2001
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Journal article
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Ann Hum Biol
There is limited evidence of a secular trend toward increased body size among populations in the Pacific Region, although some populations have shown a clear rise in overweight and obesity across the past 30 years or so. Mean height, weight and body mass index (BMI) of adults surveyed in 1996 on Rarotonga, the Cook Islands, are reported by age group and compared with data collected in 1966 by Evans and Prior, to determine the extent to which a secular trend in increasing body size has taken place across this 30-year period. In addition, a comparison of these anthropometric variables between subjects born on the most modernized island of Rarotonga with those born on other less-modernized islands is made, to determine the extent to which adult body size differs according to place of origin. Comparing the sample of those born on Rarotonga, the most modernized island, with those born on other, less modernized islands shows those born on Rarotonga to be taller, but not relatively heavier than those born elsewhere in the Cook Islands. Both males and females of the 1996 sample of adults are significantly taller, heavier, with higher BMI compared with the 1966 sample, indicating a secular trend toward increased body size across this 30-year period. The mean BMIs of the younger age groups in 1996 are greater than those of the same age groups in 1966, indicating a secular trend toward greater body fatness. There has been a significant increase in obesity among both males and females. In 1966, 14% of males had a BMI greater than 30, while in 1996, the proportion was 52%. Among females, 44% of those measured in 1966 had a BMI greater than 30, while in 1996 the proportion was 57%. The higher mean stature of younger adult males relative to older ones suggests that the secular trend toward increasing height may have been underway prior to 1966. The mean statures and weights of adults aged 60 years and older in the 1996 sample are more similar to values given for most age groups in the 1966 sample, indicating that the secular trend toward increased weight and height may have begun 50-60 years ago.
Adult, Age Factors, Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Analysis of Variance, Body Constitution, Body Mass Index, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Obesity, Polynesia, Sex Factors, Skinfold Thickness, Time Factors
Secular trend in birthweight among the Purari delta population, Papua New Guinea.
January 2001
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Journal article
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Ann Hum Biol
The aim of this analysis was to examine the extent and possible seasonal nature of the secular trend in mean birthweight in the Purari delta, Papua New Guinea. This is a country undergoing rapid modernization, and with this has come a secular trend toward increased adult body size in some parts of the country but not others. Birthweight data, collected by month of delivery at Kapuna Hospital in the Purari delta between the years 1969 and 1996, was analysed by year of birth and by season, using one-way analysis of variance and post hoc Scheffé tests with the statistical software SPSS-PC+. A total of 927 birthweights for the years 1969, 1972, 1977, 1994 and 1996 were included in the analysis. Twin births were excluded from analysis, as were births below 1.5 kg. There is clear evidence of a secular trend in increasing mean birthweight between the period 1969 and 1996, with the largest significant difference being between 1977 and 1994, from 2.70 to 2.92 kg. There were no significant differences in mean birthweight between the sexes. The rate of birthweight increase between 1977 and 1994 was 130 g per decade, lower than the gain of 200 g per decade in the period 1994-1996. The decline in birthweight of 90 g per decade during the period 1969-1977 is not statistically significant. The proportion of infants born with low birth weight (< 2.5 kg) shows an increase between 1969 and 1972, and a decline thereafter. While seasonal differences in birthweight during any of the years examined is non-significant, significantly greater mean birthweight across the period 1969-1996 was found for births during the wet season (April to July), and the drier season (August to November), respectively. The secular increase in mean birthweight is likely to be a consequence of the improvements in maternal diet and increased maternal body size that have come with economic modernization. The secular trend of seasonality in mean birthweight among the Purari delta population may be a function of seasonally varied displacement of traditional diet by non-local bought foods, as well as reduced seasonality of maternal workload associated with the processing of the traditional staple food.
Agriculture, Analysis of Variance, Birth Weight, Body Constitution, Delivery, Obstetric, Diet, Ethnicity, Female, Food Handling, Food Supply, Humans, Industry, Infant, Newborn, Male, Mothers, Nutritional Physiological Phenomena, Papua New Guinea, Pregnancy, Seasons, Sex Characteristics, Social Change, Socioeconomic Factors, Workload
Secular trends in growth: The narrowing of ethnic differences in stature
January 2001
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Journal article
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Nutrition Bulletin
Ethnic differences in growth patterns between countries have been observed even after controlling for nutrition, environment, and a range of other factors. The literature on markers of human growth patterns in different affluent populations was compared, with the aim of identifying similarities or differences that might be ascribed to nonenvironmental factors. To this end, the stature characteristics of different affluent child populations at various ages and stages (stature attained at 7 and 8 years of age; age at peak height velocity; peak height velocity) have been compared. The obvious flaw to this approach is that not all of them show maximal growth trajectories, because mean body size is still increasing for many, as the secular trend toward increasing body size has not ceased for many populations. Therefore, a review of the extent to which the same stature characteristics of populations of differing ethnicities have changed across time has been carried out, to determine the extent to which they might be approaching or attaining similar secular trend end-points associated with the achievement of genetic potential for growth. The comparison of mean heights of 7-year-old boys from populations of industrialised countries and from the highest socio-economic groups in developing countries, shows that the range of means for European and European-origin populations is similar to those of African and African-origin, and Latin-American and Indo-Mediterranean populations, but slightly higher than those of Asiatic populations. This supports the view that genetic potential for prepubertal growth may be similar for all groups examined in this way, apart from Asiatic populations. However, the secular trend toward increased body size has continued to take place among many populations, including affluent ones. The Asiatic populations observed since 1990 are much more similar in stature to their counterparts elsewhere in the world than they were prior to this date. A similar comparison among affluent adolescents shows Asiatic populations to have earlier onset of the pubertal growth spurt in stature than other major population typologies, but to have similar peak height velocities. The similarities in attained stature by mid-childhood of children of most major population typologies, apart from the Asiatic one, suggests that an international growth reference could be used currently for all major population typologies apart from the Asiatic one. It is possible that they may also be applicable to preadolescent Asiatic populations, given the dramatic secular increase in childhood stature in recent decades, if they were to achieve the same statures for age as affluent populations elsewhere in the world. With respect to pubertal growth, international references may be applied to all major population typologies apart from the Asiatic one, as the earlier age of peak height velocity in these populations is unlikely to be due to differences in environmental quality.
Socioeconomic status, body size and physical activity of adults on Rarotonga, the Cook Islands.
January 2001
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Journal article
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Ann Hum Biol
Much of the secular trend toward increased body size among populations in the Pacific Region has been attributed to the processes of economic modernization and socioeconomic change. The primary objective of the present analysis was to examine the relationships between socioeconomic factors and stature, weight, body mass index and physical activity level of adult Cook Islanders living a largely modernized lifestyle in the Pacific Region. In a cross-sectional study of physical activity, body size and socioeconomic status, a volunteer sample of 345 Cook Islanders aged 20-65 years was obtained from the total adult population of Rarotonga, and measured at six out-patient clinics. Stature, weight, body mass index (BMI), physical activity level and age were calculated by sex and occupational category, years of education, island of birth and number of years lived on Rarotonga, respectively, using SPSSPC for Windows. Stepwise multiple regression was used to examine the relationships between stature, weight, BMI, PALweekday (a measure of physical activity level), age and non-linear functions of age, and the socioeconomic variables. These analyses indicate that the secular trend in stature is a function of the relative level of modernization on Rarotonga relative to other Cook Islands, and with level of education. These factors associate differently among males and females, the secular trend among males appearing to be a general phenomenon in response to lifestyle change associated with life on Rarotonga, while among females the trend is a function of lifestyle change associated with education and independent of island of origin. The trend toward increasing body fatness is also different for males and females. Weight declines with age for both men and women, in a linear way for the males, but in a non-linear fashion for the females. Body weight is also greater among those males in more skilled and professional occupations than among those with less-skilled professions. For the women, weight is independent of occupation category. Physical activity patterns of modernizing adult Cook Islanders show no relationships with socioeconomic variables for the males, but while older women are less active, those born on Rarotonga are less active than those born elsewhere in the Cook Islands. The number of years spent on Rarotonga shows no significant relationships with any of the physical measures, or with physical activity level. This is likely to be as much a function of small sample size as a lack of effect. Although declines in energy expenditure with increasing age have been demonstrated for both males and females in various populations around the world, on Rarotonga this holds true for females and not males, indicating that physical activity declines with increasing age in modernizing societies do not occur in uniform fashion.
Adult, Aged, Analysis of Variance, Body Constitution, Body Height, Body Mass Index, Cross-Sectional Studies, Educational Status, Ethnicity, Exercise, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Polynesia, Prevalence, Regression Analysis, Sex Factors, Socioeconomic Factors
Nutrition, infection and child growth in Papua New Guinea.
December 2000
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Journal article
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Coll Antropol
Growth patterns of populations in Papua New Guinea (PNG) have traditionally shown considerable variation, with the greatest difference lying between coastal and highland populations. While genetic differences in explaining these patterns cannot be excluded, the generally poor growth relative to western growth references is largely due to the complex interactive effects of undernutrition and infection. The effects of diet, nutrition and infection on the nutritional status of a child vary with age, the general disease ecology and the type and extent of exposure to it, patterns of infant and young child feeding, and types of food consumed. There are two possible ways in which the relationship between undernutrition and infection can begin; one in which poor nutritional status leads to impaired immunocompetence and reduced resistance to infection, and the other in which exposure to infectious disease can lead to a range of factors that reduce food intake, absorption of nutrients, or increase nutrient requirements. In PNG prior to, and at early stages of modernisation, primary malnutrition is likely to have been the usual initiating factor in the onset of growth faltering due to undernutrition-infection interactions. However, the possibility that infection may have been the initiating event in some societies cannot be excluded. This would have happened by way of early dietary supplementation of infants with foods of minor nutritional significance, which could have acted as a vehicle for the introduction of infectious disease to the child. With modernisation and adoption of primary health care principles, earlier supplementation of infant diet than was previously the case became common in PNG. This has lead to general improvements in growth and nutritional status. However, in populations where undernutrition is still common, infection has become more important than primary malnutrition as the initiator of growth faltering due to undernutrition-infection interactions.
Adolescent, Anthropology, Child, Child Development, Child, Preschool, Communicable Diseases, Female, Growth, Humans, Infant, Infant, Newborn, Male, Nutrition Disorders, Nutritional Status, Papua New Guinea, Public Health
Age differences in physique of adult males aged 30 to 86 years in Rarotonga, the Cook Islands.
July 2000
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Journal article
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Int J Food Sci Nutr
In the Pacific Region, some adult populations have shown a steady rise in overweight and obesity across the 1970s and into the 1990s. While younger adults have been shown to have lower body mass index (BMI) than older ones in both the least and most modernised Samoan populations, among intermediately modernised Samoan populations, BMI has been found to be higher in younger adults than in older ones. A survey in the Cook Islands carried out in 1966 showed no age group differences in height, weight and BMI among adult males, but significantly higher mean weight and BMI among adult males aged 30 years and above. The present analysis gives mean height, weight, BMI and skinfolds of adult males above 30 years of age on Rarotonga in 1996, and examines whether the BMI-age group relationship now shows a similar transitional pattern to that observed on American Samoa. In addition, the 1996 values are compared with values obtained in 1986, to determine whether changes in physique have taken place across this time. In the 1996 volunteer sample of 142 male Cook Islanders, older adults are significantly shorter, lighter, with lower BMI than younger adults. Furthermore, the younger adults of the 1996 survey are significantly heavier, with greater BMI than the 1986 sample. This suggests that the adult male Rarotongan population is in an intermediate position with respect to lifestyle transition, the secular trend in body size and increasing prevalence of obesity, and that there has been a rapid increase in body fatness prevalence among younger adults.
Adult, Age Factors, Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Body Height, Body Mass Index, Body Weight, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Polynesia, Skinfold Thickness
Corrigendum: Anthropometric measurement error and the assessment of nutritional status (British Journal of Nutrition (1999) 82, 3 (167))
January 2000
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Journal article
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British Journal of Nutrition
Anthropometric measurement error and the assessment of nutritional status (vol 82, pg 167, 1999)
January 2000
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Journal article
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BRITISH JOURNAL OF NUTRITION
Parental education, body mass index and prevalence of obesity among 14-year-old boys between 1987 and 1997 in Wrocław, Poland.
January 2000
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Journal article
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Eur J Epidemiol
The main aim of this study was to examine changes in relative weight and prevalence of obesity across a ten-year period among 14-year-old boys according to parental education level. Data from two surveys, carried out in 1987 and 1997, of boys attending the 7th grade of primary schools in Wrocław were used in the analysis. The heights and weights of 3165 boys aged 14 years selected from cohort of 6969 7th and 8th grade boys from all primary schools of the city Wrocław were used. The data of the second sample of 14-year-old boys (n = 1014) were obtained from a health examination study carried out in the Silesian Centre for Preventive Medicine, 'DOLMED', in Wrocław in 1997. All boys attended the 7th grade of 34 randomly selected primary schools from a total of 129 schools in the city of Wrocław. Social status was assessed on the basis of parental education level scored to four categories: university, secondary school, trade school, and elementary school. The prevalence of overweight and obesity was defined as the percentage of children above the 85th and 95th percentiles of the body mass index (BMI), the means of which were 21.27 and 23.75 kg/m2 respectively. Prevalence of overweight among boys is slightly lower in the 1997 sample, whereas the prevalence of obesity shows the opposite trend and is higher by more than one percent in comparison with the 1987 sample. Similar trends of declining medians and increasing variance are observed in all educational groups. The differences in medians between the two samples within educational groups did not achieve statistical significance for the groups with parents with education at elementary level and fathers with university education. There is a trend toward increasing prevalence of obesity across the decade considered, according to father's education level. With respect to mother's education levels, the most dramatic changes in BMI and obesity occurred in the elementary education group, where the percentage of obese subjects increased more than twofold. A significant increase is also observed in the group with parents attaining university education.
Adolescent, Body Mass Index, Educational Status, Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice, Health Surveys, Humans, Male, Obesity, Parents, Poland, Prevalence, Probability, Risk Assessment, Risk Factors, Statistics, Nonparametric
Population and food. Global trends and future prospects.
January 2000
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Journal article
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JOURNAL OF BIOSOCIAL SCIENCE
The economics of population: Classic writings.
January 2000
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Journal article
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JOURNAL OF BIOSOCIAL SCIENCE
Daily energy expenditure across the course of lactation among urban Bangladeshi women.
December 1999
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Journal article
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American journal of physical anthropology
Measures of energy intake of lactating women in developing countries show that intakes are often lower than those recommended by international bodies, while fat-mass losses are often substantially less than the 3-4 kg used in the calculations of recommendations, suggesting that physiological adaptation must be commonplace among such women. The cost of lactation may be met by reduction in energy expenditure, including reduced physical activity, as well as by mobilization of bodily soft tissue. However, daily energy expenditure of lactating women has been shown to increase across the course of lactation among women in a rural population in the Philippines and an urban population in India, with a decline in body weight across the course of lactation in both studies. In the present study, total daily energy expenditure and anthropometric body composition were measured longitudinally in 68 mothers from a poor urban area of Dhaka, Bangladesh, at 0, 1, 2, 4, and 8 months of lactation, to determine whether the increasing energy expenditure across lactation observed elsewhere also occurs in Bangladeshi women. In addition, the extent to which an extended period of lactation was accompanied by weight and body fat change in these women was determined. Energy expenditure by heart-rate monitoring and activity report, and body composition from anthropometry was carried out four times across the 8-month period of lactation. A small decline in body fat mass and a significant increase in total energy expenditure across this period were observed, confirming similar observations elsewhere in the developing world.
Humans, Anthropometry, Body Composition, Energy Metabolism, Lactation, Heart Rate, Poverty, Adult, Urban Population, Bangladesh, Female
Anthropometric measurement error and the assessment of nutritional status.
September 1999
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Journal article
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The British journal of nutrition
Anthropometry involves the external measurement of morphological traits of human beings. It has a widespread and important place in nutritional assessment, and while the literature on anthropometric measurement and its interpretation is enormous, the extent to which measurement error can influence both measurement and interpretation of nutritional status is little considered. In this article, different types of anthropometric measurement error are reviewed, ways of estimating measurement error are critically evaluated, guidelines for acceptable error presented, and ways in which measures of error can be used to improve the interpretation of anthropometric nutritional status discussed. Possible errors are of two sorts; those that are associated with: (1) repeated measures giving the same value (unreliability, imprecision, undependability); and (2) measurements departing from true values (inaccuracy, bias). Imprecision is due largely to observer error, and is the most commonly used measure of anthropometric measurement error. This can be estimated by carrying out repeated anthropometric measures on the same subjects and calculating one or more of the following: technical error of measurement (TEM); percentage TEM, coefficient of reliability (R), and intraclass correlation coefficient. The first three of these measures are mathematically interrelated. Targets for training in anthropometry are at present far from perfect, and further work is needed in developing appropriate protocols for nutritional anthropometry training. Acceptable levels of measurement error are difficult to ascertain because TEM is age dependent, and the value is also related to the anthropometric characteristics of the group of population under investigation. R > 0.95 should be sought where possible, and reference values of maximum acceptable TEM at set levels of R using published data from the combined National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys I and II (Frisancho, 1990) are given. There is a clear hierarchy in the precision of different nutritional anthropometric measures, with weight and height being most precise. Waist and hip circumference show strong between-observer differences, and should, where possible, be carried out by one observer. Skinfolds can be associated with such large measurement error that interpretation is problematic. Ways are described in which measurement error can be used to assess the probability that differences in anthropometric measures across time within individuals are due to factors other than imprecision. Anthropometry is an important tool for nutritional assessment, and the techniques reported here should allow increased precision of measurement, and improved interpretation of anthropometric data.
Humans, Body Weight, Observer Variation, Anthropometry, Body Constitution, Body Height, Skinfold Thickness, Nutrition Assessment, Sensitivity and Specificity, Nutritional Status
Urbanism, Health and Human Biology in Industrialised Countries
August 1999
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Book
Explores what effects urban living has on human health and behaviour.
Health & Fitness
Habitual energy expenditure of human climbing and clambering.
November 1998
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Journal article
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Annals of human biology
Despite many studies on the energetics of terrestrial, aquatic and aerial locomotion, little work has been done on the costs of arboreal locomotion. There is increasing interest in modelling the bioenergetics of extinct mammalian species, including hominids, but as early hominids are thought to have combined terrestrial bipedalism with arboreal climbing and clambering, absence of data on the energetics of climbing in higher primates limits work on hominid locomotor energetics. In this study, the energetics of climbing and clambering in humans has been investigated to assess the differences in energetic cost between terrestrial bipedal walking and vertical climbing and clambering. Energy expenditure during climbing and clambering, walking and standing was measured in 29 active, non-obese young adults. Anthropometric data were also collected. Analysis using paired t-tests showed that there is a highly significant difference (p < 0.001) between mean walking and mean climbing and clambering expenditure, 24 +/- 7 versus 48 +/- 18 kJ/min respectively. Body mass, percentage body fat and fat-free mass were all positively correlated with energy expenditure. It was concluded that any energetic advantages that accrue from terrestrial bipedal locomotion may be offset by the great cost of arboreal activity, implying that the conditions under which bipedalism may have evolved were contingent upon the time allocation associated with arboreal and terrestrial locomotion.
Humans, Anthropometry, Walking, Linear Models, Body Composition, Energy Metabolism, Mountaineering, Adult, Female, Male
The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human Growth and Development
August 1998
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Book
Over 120 internationally renowned experts have contributed to the book, covering topics such as fetal and postnatal growth, the relative impact of genetic and environmental factors, behavioral development, growth abnormalities, the human ...
Science
10. Anthropometric measures
April 1997
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Chapter
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Design Concepts in Nutritional Epidemiology
4206 Public Health, 42 Health Sciences, Pediatric, Nutrition
Human Adaptability Past, Present, and Future The First Parkes Foundation Workshop, Oxford, January 1994
January 1997
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Book
In The biology of human adaptability (ed. P. T. Baker and J. S. Weiner), pp. 1 1 1-
200. Clarendon Press, Oxford. Tobias, P. V. (1972). Growth and stature in
Southern African populations. In The human biology of environmental change (
ed. D. J. M. Vorster), pp. 96-104. International Biological Programme, London.
Tobias, P. V. (1985). History of physical anthropology in South Africa. Yearbook
of Physical Anthropology, 28, 1-52. Ulijaszek, S. J. (1995). Human energetics in
biological ...
Adaptation (Biology)
Age of eruption of deciduous dentition of Anga children, Papua New Guinea.
November 1996
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Journal article
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Annals of human biology
The emergence of deciduous dentition has been reported to be slower in non-Europeans than Europeans at the earlier but not later stages, and to be little affected by nutritional status. Emergence of deciduous dentition is reported for 135 young Anga children of the highland fringe of Papua New Guinea, and compared with their nutritional status as assessed by stature for age, and weight for stature. Emergence is delayed relative to European (Canadian) reference values in all but the last deciduous teeth to emerge. It is also delayed relative to other populations in Papua New Guinea for the mid-range of deciduous teeth to emerge. This later mid-range emergence may be related to the very poor nutritional status of Anga children.
Relationships between undernutrition, infection, and growth and development
July 1996
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Journal article
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Human Evolution
31 Biological Sciences, 32 Biomedical and Clinical Sciences, 3210 Nutrition and Dietetics, Nutrition, Infectious Diseases, 2 Aetiology, 2.2 Factors relating to the physical environment, 2.1 Biological and endogenous factors, Infection, 2 Zero Hunger, 3 Good Health and Well Being
Long-term Consequences of Early Environment Growth, Development and the Lifespan Developmental Perspective
June 1996
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Book
In this book a leading team of researchers explore the long-term effects of early environment in humans.
Medical
Energetics, adaptation, and adaptability.
January 1996
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Journal article
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American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council
Energetics, lifestyles, and nutritional adaptation: An introduction
January 1996
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Journal article
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American Journal of Human Biology
Health Intervention in Less Developed Nations
January 1995
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Book
This is the first book to critically examine the wider human implications of different types of health intervention in the third world, and draws together much material only otherwise available in policy documents and reports of ...
Public health
Iban energy nutrition and shifting agriculture
October 1994
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Journal article
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Ecology of Food and Nutrition
32 Biomedical and Clinical Sciences, 3210 Nutrition and Dietetics, 42 Health Sciences, Obesity, Nutrition
Evidence for a secular trend in heights and weights of adults in Papua New Guinea.
July 1993
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Journal article
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Annals of human biology
Evidence for a secular change in heights and weights of adults of 13 populations in Papua New Guinea was sought by comparing data collected at two different times, using three types of source. These are: (1) values obtained from the literature; (2) previously unpublished measurements made by author; and (3) data found in the research notes of A.C. Haddon, and which were collected between 1897 and 1914. An increase in heights and weights has taken place in some, but not all, populations examined, whilst a decrease in adult body size has taken place in a smaller number of groups.
Humans, Body Weight, Analysis of Variance, Retrospective Studies, Demography, Time Factors, Adult, Papua New Guinea, Female, Male
Nutritional anthropology prospects and perspectives
June 1993
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Book
Human growth
Resting energy expenditure and body composition in rural Sarawaki adults.
January 1993
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Journal article
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American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council
Estimating energy and nutrient intakes in studies of human fertility.
July 1992
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Journal article
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Journal of biosocial science
Two methods of dietary recording, the 24-hr recall and the weighed dietary intake methods, are considered appropriate for estimating energy and nutrient intakes in studies of human fertility. The former method gives lower estimates than the latter, although weighed intakes may underestimate true intakes. Examination of food intakes of pregnant, lactating, and non-pregnant, non-lactating New Guinean women shows their diet to be less homogeneous than is generally assumed for groups in developing countries. As a result direct observations of food intake for a limited number of days are not sufficiently accurate for the estimation of intake of most of the nutrients examined. Rather the study design should reflect the variability of intakes of the nutrients and groups under consideration.
Humans, Feeding Behavior, Energy Metabolism, Nutritional Requirements, Nutritive Value, Fertility, Adolescent, Adult, Female, Male
Dietary and nutrient intakes of 25 Ningerum (New Guinea) adult males at two times of the year.
January 1992
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Journal article
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American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council
Human energetics methods in biological anthropology
January 1992
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Book
4401 Anthropology, 44 Human Society, Nutrition, Obesity, Metabolic and endocrine, 7 Affordable and Clean Energy
Population and sex differences in arm circumference and skinfold thicknesses among Indo-Pakistani children living in the East Midlands of Britain.
January 1992
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Journal article
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Annals of human biology
Arm circumference, triceps and subscapular skinfold thicknesses of 2224 Indo-Pakistani children aged 3-10.9 years living in Nottingham and Leicestershire were measured. The children were classified into populations according to country of origin, and religion, prior to analysis. Significant between-population differences were shown for all three variables, the effect being stronger in males than in females. Sex differences in arm circumference and triceps skinfold thickness were greater than those found in the British reference populations, whilst the patterns of fat distribution differed from the British standards for all the Indo-Pakistani populations, male and female.
Arm, Humans, Anthropometry, Body Mass Index, Skinfold Thickness, Sex Characteristics, Child, Child, Preschool, Infant, Newborn, Pakistan, England, Female, Male
Human dietary change.
November 1991
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Journal article
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Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences
The transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture and animal husbandry in the Near East and Mediterranean Region began some 12,000 years ago. The ecological changes associated with this change are known to have been related to higher levels of stress from undernutrition and infectious disease. Certain pathologies found in human skeletal remains from this time are indicative of anaemia and osteoporosis, although it is not clear whether they had clear nutritional aetiologies. In this paper, dietary changes associated with changes in subsistence practices in this region are described. In addition, quantitative modelling of possible patterns of dietary and nutrient intakes of adult males before, and soon after, the establishment of agrarian economies is used to examine the proposition that the skeletal pathologies porotic hyperostosis, cribra orbitalia and porotic hyperostosis may have been due to nutritional deficiencies. The results suggest that protein deficiency was only likely if subjects were suffering from chronic energy deficiency (CED) and their diet contained no meat. Dietary calcium deficiency was possible after the transition to cultivation and animal husbandry, in the presence of moderate or severe CED. Anaemias, although present after the transition, were unlikely to have had dietary aetiologies, regardless of the severity of CED.
Basal metabolic rate and physique of Gurkha and British soldiers stationed in Britain.
May 1991
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Journal article
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Annals of human biology
Measurements of basal metabolic rate (BMR) and physique were made on Gurkha soldiers stationed in Britain, and on British controls matched by body weight and occupational background. Gurkhas were significantly shorter, with greater body mass index, calf circumference and subscapular skinfold thickness than the European controls, although there was no difference in BMR between the two groups. For the Gurkhas, linear regression analysis incorporating factors which may influence BMR showed a positive relationship between the length of time since leaving Nepal and BMR, supporting the view that Asians living in temperate regions have higher BMR than those living in the tropics.
Humans, Basal Metabolism, Body Constitution, Regression Analysis, Climate, Adolescent, Adult, Military Personnel, Nepal, Male, United Kingdom
Age at menarche of European, Afro-Caribbean and Indo-Pakistani schoolgirls living in London.
March 1991
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Journal article
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Annals of human biology
Age at menarche is reported for 1,365 European, 530 Afro-Caribbean and 282 Indo-Pakistani schoolgirls taking part in a cross-sectional anthropometric survey in the London Area Health Authorities of Kensington, Chelsea and Westminster, and Brent and Harrow, in 1980-81. Mean ages at menarche are 13.59 +/- 0.37 years (European), 13.18 +/- 0.11 years (Afro-Caribbean) and 13.06 +/- 0.20 years (Indo-Pakistani). The European value is significantly higher than those for Afro-Caribbean and Indo-Pakistani girls, and for Europeans living in the same areas of London in 1966. Social class has an effect on age at menarche in Afro-Caribbean and European girls, but not Indo-Pakistani girls, whilst family size has an effect on age at menarche in Europeans and Indo-Pakistanis.
Humans, Birth Order, Family Characteristics, Age Factors, Menarche, Social Class, Adolescent, Child, West Indies, Asia, London, Europe, Female
The Ok Tedi Health and Nutrition Project, Papua New Guinea: adult physique of three populations in the North Fly region.
January 1989
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Journal article
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Annals of human biology
Adult physiques of three populations living close to a major gold and copper mine are described and compared. Men of all three groups do not differ in stature, sitting height, biceps, triceps, subscapular and medial calf skinfold thicknesses. However, Wopkaimin men are heavier, with bigger mid-upper arm circumference and bi-iliac diameter than their Ningerum and Awin counterparts. Women of all three groups have similar stature, sitting height, biacromial diameter, biceps and triceps skinfold thicknesses. Wopkaimin women have greater values for mid-upper arm and calf circumference, subscapular, supra-iliac and medial calf skinfold thicknesses, and bi-iliac diameter. These differences are attributed to an increase in the plane of nutrition of the Wopkaimin, who live closest to, and have been most affected by the Ok Tedi gold and copper mining operation.
Humans, Anthropometry, Body Constitution, Adult, New Guinea, Female, Male, Nutritional Physiological Phenomena, Ethnicity
Mining, modernisation and dietary change among the Wopkaimin of Papua New Guinea
September 1987
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Journal article
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Ecology of Food and Nutrition
32 Biomedical and Clinical Sciences, 3210 Nutrition and Dietetics, Nutrition, Obesity
Modifications to the AHRTAG child length measurer. Appropriate Health Resources and Technology Action Group.
July 1987
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Journal article
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Tropical doctor
Humans, Anthropometry, Body Height, Equipment Design, Infant, Infant, Newborn
Palm Sago (Metroxylon Species) As A Subsistence Crop
July 1983
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Journal article
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Journal of Plant Foods
Anthropometric survey.
January 1979
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Journal article
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Lancet (London, England)
Humans, Body Weight, Anthropometry, Body Height, Skinfold Thickness, Cross-Sectional Studies, Adolescent, Child, West Indies, India, Pakistan, London, Europe, Male
Framing obesity in UK policy from the Blair years, 1997-2015: the persistence of individualistic approaches despite overwhelming evidence of societal and economic factors, and the need for collective responsibility