Personal perspectives and contemporary trends in nutritional anthropology

Abstract

Christine Wilson’s (2002) keynote address would make anexcellent introduction to a course on nutritional anthropol-ogy. It provides an early history of the discipline, namessome of the founding parents from both the nutritionalscience and anthropological lineages, and points a directionfor future interdisciplinary research. Dr Wilson has been atthe forefront of the development of nutritional anthropologysince its inception in the 1970s and she remains an influentialscholar more than three decades later. She has shaped thediscipline with her own research publications and presenta-tions, her innovative teaching, her more than two decades aseditor for Ecology of Food and Nutrition and her organizationof national and international symposia and conferences(Lieberman, 2001).She engages scholars from many disciplines who have aninterestinfood.Becauseofherbreadthofknowledge,Ialwayslearn important historical facts when I speak with her or readher papers. For example, in this essay, I was surprised to readof the Committee on Food Habits 1940s trials with tofuacceptability(Wilson,2002).Sheclearlyengendersthegoalofthe Committee on Food Habits (1943) which was to unite thebehavioral and nutritional sciences to develop an integrativediscipline to enable scholars to understand the distal andproximate reasons for why people eat what they eat, how,where, and when (Guthe & Mead, 1943).As Dr Wilson has noted, the Council on NutritionalAnthropology, a section of the American AnthropologicalAssociation,hasrecentlycelebratedits25thAnniversary.Oneof its activities has been to publish annotated syllabi withbibliographies for nutritional anthropology courses (SNACs)(Teufel & Staten, 1991; Lieberman & Sorensen, 1997). Thepedagogical trends show both an increase in interdiscipli-nary approaches reflected in the research literature and theproblem orientation of a plethora of applied anthropologytopics with nutritional components. Sobal’s commentarymakes a good case for interdisciplinary training and research(Sobal, 2002) while Booth argues for an expanded behavioralepidemiology of nutrition inclusive of psychology with atten-tion to individual as well population level data (Booth, 2002).The explicitly biocultural approach, both as a disciplinaryfocusinanthropologyandasaframeworkforinterdisciplinaryteachingandresearch,isexemplifiedintherecentcompilationof readings and commentaries by Goodman et al. (2000)NutritionalAnthropology:BioculturalPerspectivesonFoodandNutrition.A number of trends were observed in the courses contri-buted to SNAC II: Syllabi for Nutritional AnthropologyCourses(LiebermanSLieberman,1998).The45 published syllabi were from courses taught in departmentsand programs in anthropology, sociology, public health,health sciences, geography, international programs, folkloreand folk life, nutrition and dietetics. Although there wasenormous diversity in content, the shared object was ‘‘tounderstand why people eat what they eat.’’Some courses focused on psychological and symbolicfactorsandtheculturalidentityinvolvedinfoodhabits.Othercourses emphasized local and global economic, sociodemo-graphic,ecologicalandpoliticalfactors—oftenwithaproblemorappliedfocussuchasfoodsecurityoralterationsinresourcebases. Gender has become a central issue intersecting withearlier concerns of social class, economics, education,ethnicity/race, religion and health. Gender has become thefocusofstudiesoffoodproduction,distribution,consumptionand the psychobiological consequences of these activities(e.g. fertility, infant feeding practices, bulimia).Nearly all courses use examples of US ethnic groups and71% include international cases. National and internationalfood policy issues were couched in terms of food security andfood safety supplanting earlier discussions of famine andpopulation issues. Board ecological issues ranged from tradi-tional subsistence strategies such as pastoralism to the poten-tial impact of genetically engineered species of plants andanimals. Both under- and over-nutrition were examined inmultidisciplinary contexts for example, relating health beliefsto fast food marketing techniques. Courses employed anumber of exercises from nutritional anthropometry toE-mail: llieberm@mail.ucf.edu standard 24-hour dietary recalls to the preparation of0195–6663/02/010077+02 $35.00/0 # 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd