Cultural Perspectives on Diet and Nutrition: Food as Symbol and Nourishment - Prof. Krishn, Study notes of Physical anthropology

Download Cultural Perspectives on Diet and Nutrition: Food as Symbol and Nourishment - Prof. Krishn and more Study notes Physical anthropology in PDF only on Docsity!

Diet and Nutrition

Why do medical anthropologists study food? Food is more than nutrition Patterned by culture, signal relationships, status, occupation, gender and group identity Permeates almost every aspect of everyday life Multi-vocal symbol You are what you refuse to it You are what you eat Dietary beliefs and practices vary X-culturally and notoriously difficult to change Some cultural prescriptions about a physiological process may negatively impact health

Food Versus Non Food

We leave out substances that have nutritional value No human groups define human flesh as food Definitions change under conditions of famine, economic deprivation and foreign travel

Sacred versus profane food

Sacred = validated by religious beliefs Profane = forbidden by religion, a taboo, dangerous, polluting, unclean this dichotomy is part of the wider moral framework food that is normally eaten are considered profane and are avoided during the 25 hour fast on the day of atonement, or during Ramadan when food and drink is avoided between dawn and sunset… food restrictions are characteristics of number of religious faith

Food as medicine and medicine as food

• (^) Cultural prescription for appropriate food and drink to treat or advance a physiological process, such as pregnancy, lactation and menstruation Examples:
• (^) Programs that favor maximizing calorie and protein availability may reduce range of nutrients available
• (^) Nuticeuticals for the treatment of a variety of physical and mental disorders
• (^) Pasteurized milk seen as artificial or unhealthy

Food as poison

• (^) Relatively a new phenomenon
• (^) Concern for food safety, food scares, “food poisoning”
• (^) Examples: chemical additives, mercury in fish, hoemones and antibiotics in milk from factory farms, microbial contamination (BSE), GM foods
• (^) Based on proven scientific information but public response often have a strongly symbolic aspect

Culture influences affect nutrition in two ways:

• (^) exclude much needed nutrients
• (^) encourage consumption of certain foods and drinks that are actually injurious to health
• (^) When both these influences co-exist there may be an increased risk of malnutrition that may manifest as under-nutrition or over- nutrition

Factors that account for the vast majority of malnutrition worldwide: Cultural factors:

• beliefs about the structure and functioning of the body, its optimal size and shape
• Dietary culture (beliefs about the role of diet in health and disease; prescription and proscriptions)
• rules of food use and distribution within a family
• diffusion of western modes of food production, marketing and consumption Political Economic factors
• Poverty
• wars
• crop failure
• colonialism
• International Political Eeconomy of food production and consumption
• Political Instability
• Inadequate primary health care Environmental factors:
• Natural disasters
• Crop failures
• Contaminated environment

W h at has ca us ed the ris e o f ob es ity wo rldw id e?

• (^) Changes in dietary patterns
• (^) Increased availability of processed foods (polished grains), fat(cheap vegetable oils) , and calories
• (^) Infant feeding practices
• (^) Sedentary nature of modern life
• (^) Globalization, Urbanization; “nutrition transition”
• (^) Norms related to ideal body size
• (^) Stone age genes
• (^) Cultural obesity

Nutrition Transition

• (^) A change from traditional dietary habit to a pattern of diet high in saturated fat, sugar, and refined foods and low in fiber, often termed the "Western diet."
• (^) This dietary pattern to be associated with high levels of chronic and degenerative diseases and with reduced disability-free time.

• (^) What is the most common form of malnutrition in the West?
• (^) Can obesity be blamed only on Modernity? Globalization?
• (^) What is considered the greatest nutritional crisis in the world today?
• (^) What is “Milk Kinship?”