Deborah L. Crooks

Child growth and nutritional status in a high-poverty community in eastern Kentucky.

The research reported in this paper examines the relationship between household socioeconomic measures, child growth, and nutritional status in a community in eastern Kentucky with a high rate of poverty. It is based on the premise that child growth and nutritional status reflect the social circumstances in which they occur. 21.6% of the children exhibited low height (<15th percentile of National Center for Health Statistics [NCHS] reference values), with 13% of the girls exhibiting stunting (<5th percentile). Thirty-three percent of the children exhibited overweight, and 13% exhibited obesity (>85th percentile and >95th percentile of National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey [NHANES] reference values, respectively); 21.4% of boys were obese, compared to 8.7% of girls. Analysis of variance indicated that child stature is best explained by the fathers education level interacting with employment status, and by the mothers employment status interacting with household poverty level. Weight is best explained by the mothers employment status. However, the relationships among socioeconomic measures and growth outcomes differed by gender of the child. These issues are discussed in light of the anthropology literature and the situation in Bridges County, Kentucky where the research took place.

Coping and the biosocial consequences of food insecurity in the 21st century

Food security occurs when all members of a household have reliable access to food in sufficient quantity and quality to maintain an active and healthy lifestyle. Given the important biological and social value of food for humans, food and food sufficiency have been traditional topics of study among biological anthropologists. The focus on food insecurity, however, has emerged within the past two decades and recent global events, including the food crisis of 2007/2008, have led to renewed interests in the topic of food insecurity and wellbeing. Here, we review current and novel threats to food security, current thinking on measurement and definitions, and then outline a model that links food insecurity to coping strategies and then to health outcomes. We suggest that coping strategies are typically context-specific and can be food and nonfood based. We further suggest that coping strategies may impact health quite broadly, not just through nutritional pathways. We then review available data on the relationship between food insecurity and nutritional status, chronic diseases, infectious diseases, and mental health. Our review highlights the far reaching consequences of food insecurity for human wellbeing but also the considerable variability in its effect and our limited empirical knowledge of the pathways through which food insecurity impacts health. We conclude by offering thoughts on how biological anthropologists might contribute to growing our understanding of food insecurity and human health and wellbeing.

Relationship between environment and growth for Mopan children in Belize

The growth status (stature, weight, body mass index, arm circumference, estimated arm muscle and fat) of Mopan Maya children, ages 9–14 years, from San Antonio, Toledo, Belize, is evaluated with two objectives: (1) to identify associations between growth and factors in the household and local environment that coexist with poverty, and (2) to consider growth in relation to the distribution of national resources. One‐way analyses of variance indicate significant differences among z‐scores for indication of growth status by age, although the direction of the differences is not consistent. T‐tests indicate boys exhibit significantly lower z‐scores for weight, arm circumference and estimated arm muscle, but significantly higher z‐scores for estimated arm fat than girls. Although girls suffer preschool malnutrition at twice the rate than boys, the differences may indicate later female buffering for some aspects of growth. T‐tests, correlations and regression analyses indicate the importance of household socio‐economic and demographic factors for growth. Although the equations that best explain the six growth measures are not identical, they indicate the significance of SES, birth order, home environment and gender in explaining variation in the growth of San Antonio children. At the population level, growth faltering is apparent among San Antonio children compared to U.S. reference data, most likely resulting from chronic mild to moderate undernutrition. Low levels of infrastructure in Toledo District and poor access to resources for Mopan Maya in San Antonio probably contribute to the less than optimal growth status.

Migration Following Resettlement of the Gwembe Tonga of Zambia: The Consequences for Children's Growth

In 1958, 57,000 Gwembe Tonga people were forcibly relocated by a large-scale hydroelectric development project. The land on which they were resettled was insufficient to sustain their livelihoods, and many later chose to migrate to a frontier zone north and west of the Gwembe Valley to secure additional land for farming. Guided by human adaptability theory, we use child growth as a measure of success of the migration strategy, and find that in 2004, migrant children were growing better than pre-resettlement (1957/58) and post-resettlement (1993) Gwembe Tonga children. In addition, fewer migrant children were stunted and underweight than their earlier counterparts in the Gwembe Valley.