NU 322 - Nutritional Anthropology

Credit(s): 3.00

This course examines human nutrition and food systems from behavioral, social, biocultural and evolutionary perspectives, and how these interact in the production of nutritional health at the individual, community and population levels. Two central areas of research in the anthropology of food and nutrition will be addressed. First, long-term evolutionary processes are examined within an ecological framework as significant factors affecting human biology and susceptibility to dietary patterns and diet-related disease. Second, global relations of power and inequity are examined as key factors influencing access to food and patterns of over- and under-nutrition for both populations and individuals. Students will also learn how this information applies to the real world as they conduct an anthropological research project.