Agricultural Transformation and Ontogeny in Rural Populations from the Yucatan Peninsula at the turn of the Century: Studying Linear Enamel Hypoplasias and Body Composition in Adolescents

Abstract

This chapter associates early developmental stress, as evidenced by the presence or absence of linear enamel hypoplasias (LEH), with fat accumulation in adolescents using body mass index (BMI) in two agricultural populations from the Yucatan Peninsula with different degrees of dependence on store foods. Adolescent males with LEHs had lower BMIz scores while the reverse was true for females. BMI variation in males depended on their ability to satisfy an activity schedule with a high-energy demand that placed individuals who had early developmental problems at a disadvantage. Women on the other hand, while busy for longer hours than men, had more stationary activities and did not participate in sports. Systemic problems in utero and early childhood would therefore lead to a thrifty phenotype and, because they are stationary, these women tended to accumulate body fat faster than those without LEHs. That this happened both in Calakmul with a high fiber traditional diet and in Central Yucatan with a store-bought high carbohydrate diet suggests that labor allocation differences in agricultural populations in the Yucatan Peninsula put women at a disadvantage that may lead those with a thrifty phenotype to become overweight. That this process is much more evident in Central Yucatan than in Calakmul suggests that development will exacerbate the consequences of traditional gender inequalities already present in the agricultural household adaptive strategy.