Through exploring the website of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists I learned a lot about the concept of biological anthropology. It offered a lot of information on the different subtypes of anthropology within the category of biological anthropology. Biological Anthropology deals with all the adaptations and changes that are seen coming with the evolution of humans and our living and fossil relatives. I was particularly interested in the subsection involving applied anthropometry. In this section it deals with the changes seen in size, shape, anatomy and growth of the human body over time. Therefore the aspect that deals with this that I chose to look further into is nutrition.
I went to the Society for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition (SAFN). This society was founded to encourage the research of and study of different theories and information regarding how socio-cultural, behavioural and political-economic factors relating to food and nutrition impact the differing evolution patterns that we are seeing in current humans compared to our ancestors and those in other regions currently across the world. The idea that our diet can alter our anatomy and physiology is fascinating. As many people probably know our ancestors were hunter gatherers so our diets now in The United States tend to be drastically different than the foods that they would typically eat. There has recently been a lot of talk about people committing to a Paleo Diet. For people that might not be familiar with this it is a diet that includes lean meats, fish, fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds. These are all foods that would have been easily obtained by hunting and gathering by our ancestors. Anthropologists who study the effect of nutrition are able to compare how our modern diet has altered and affected the evolution in our anatomy seen. For example, many people attribute the explosion in obesity, diabetes and heart disease prevalence rates to be due to our rapid changes in diet due to farming and other industrialized measures including a large consumption of dairy products, and processed foods.
After spending more time looking at the website I was really interested to see what kinds of changes were seen in our anatomy from our evolution of diet. An article I found supported the idea that our body has had many anatomical changes to compensate with a drastic change in diet. It explains that we have an expanding brain, a shrinking large intestine and an enlargement of our small intestine in comparison to our ancestors (Armelagos, 2014). In studying the world’s few remaining foraging populations they have noted their bodies anatomical and physiological changes as they too transition to a diet dominated by processed and domesticated foods. This gives good insight into how changes in diet cause the human body to compensate to efficiently digest and get the most nutrients out of the food. I think it is amazing that these anthroplogists are able to compare and study the differences seen just by changes in nutrition and diet.
I think it is so cool that these anthropologists are able to study the changes seen in our bodies compared to the fossil records of our ancestors to see how such a quick and rapid change in our diet is able to impact our bodies. I believe that this field will be able to offer a lot of benefits in research as to why we are seeing a huge increase in the prevalence of certain diseases that were relatively non-existent in our ancestors populations and how big of an impact our modern diet has on these conditions. This contributes to the broader idea of anthropology because it explores the relationship that nutrition and diet have on the evolution of our biological traits.
Armelagos, G. J. (2014). Brain Evolution, the Determinates of Food Choice, and the Omnivores Dilemma. Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition,54(10), 1330-1341. doi:10.1080/10408398.2011.635817
https://foodanthro.com/
Hi!
Great article! I just got done reading another classmate article on teeth and yours happens to be about food. Just like I mentioned before in my previous comment, teeth is important to understand so is food. You make great point on how food changes our bodies especially in modern days compared to our ancestors. It has me thinking about how society now compared to then view on beauty has changed as well.
We all know that society plays an important role has to how our bodies should look like and the types of food trends out there, like meal prepping and dieting. Speaking of dieting, my bf is actually on the keto diet. I have seen Paleo and Keto products in grocery stores lately.
Hey, this was a great blog and thank you for teaching me something new! When you talked about how our diets can impact our bodies, I immediately started to think about this IAH class that I took where were talked a lot about food. We watched a movie called Super Size Me that showed this man’s journey as he ate McDonald’s for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for a long period of time; and how it impacted his body and health. I just wonder what an anthropologist’s, and one who studies applied anthropometry, view would be on the fast food industry and how that has affected humans. I also wonder what an anthropologist would say about that documentary, if there were anything to say that correlated with anthropology in general.
Hi!
This is a very insightful and well-written post that taught me a lot. Like you pointed out it is very interesting that over time more diseases and allergies have become prevalent in society today. This is also something that was mentioned in the podcast for this week too, and that all we really need to do is go back to the Paleo diet to be healthy. I think that it is important that anthropology for food an nutrition exists, because we can easily see what healthy foods we need in our diets. This also makes me think about all of the fad diets that are out there and all of the myths about nutrition that circulate around the web.