Nutritional anthropology: definition

The early history of nutritional anthropology dates back to studies of food and social organization in industrial societies in the 1930s.

The emergence of nutritional anthropology in the 1970s has tended to replicate the ‘two cultures’ of an anthropology divided methodologically and by theories into social and biological sciences. The British anthropologist Audrey Richards in 1939 is often described as the first one who explicitly focused on food.

Nutritional anthropology has been defined as the study of food and nutrition from evolutionary, behavioral, social and cultural perspectives, and understanding the interrelationship of biological and social forces in the production of nutritional health at the individual, community and population levels.

Nutritional anthropology deals with nutrition as a process of the ways ‘in which humans utilize food to meet the requirements of biological and behavior functioning’.

Most published research in nutritional anthropology is found in journals and per-reviewed books relating to nutrition, medicine, epidemiology, and food anthropology.

Nutritional anthropology uses methods, theory, and data from anthropology, public health, medicine, nutritional science, demography, human biology, plant and animal biology, agronomy and epidemiology to examine food acquisition, processing, consumption and nutriture.
Nutritional anthropology: definition 

Nutritional anthropology

The early history of nutritional anthropology dates back to studies of food and social organization in non-industrial societies. The British anthropologist Audrey Richards (1939) is often described as the first one who explicitly focused on food.

The emergence of nutritional anthropology in the 1970s has tended to replicate the ‘two cultures’ of an anthropology divided methodologically and by theories into social and biological sciences.

In nutritional sciences, food is mainly viewed in terms of its nutrient composition and effects upon the body’s metabolic processes and health status. In 1976, Freedman has defined nutritional anthropology as ‘the study of the interrelationship between diet and culture and their mutual influence upon one another’.

It is methodologically both processual and scientific because it explores the processes by which humans use of food to meet requirements of biological and behavioral functioning and science that’s studies the chemical processing and biological use of food.

Primary interest include food and culture connections, variation for optimal diets, disease variations and the social patterns, culture and roles within food-getting and distribution behaviors that determine access to food.

Nutritional status is one of the major contributing variables affecting health and disease thus nutritional anthropology and medical anthropology overlap significantly.
Nutritional anthropology