Course Description
What is the “natural” human diet? What are the evolutionary, behavioral, and sociocultural factors influence contemporary diets? This course will introduce you to the field of nutritional anthropology, examine dietary variation throughout our species history, and explore role of evolution, ecology, and economics in shaping human diet and nutrition.
Athena Title
Nutritional Anthropology
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
Throughout the course, the student will be expected to: • Identify central questions and theoretical approaches used in nutritional anthropology. • Understand and explain examples of how diet and nutrition are connected to global patterns of human variation. • Identify methodological approaches used in scholarly research in nutritional anthropology. • Review, evaluate, and criticize the literature on human diet and nutrition from an explicitly anthropological perspective.
Topical Outline
What is Nutritional Anthropology? Methods of measuring diet in the past and today Humans as omnivorous primates Diet in prehistory – evolutionary changes, environment, and subsistence strategies Diets throughout history Studying diets during historical, political, and/or economic conflicts Culture change and dietary change Dietary adaptation Food ecologies Current global dietary variation Nutritional balance: the role of physical activity Stigma and nutritional anthropology