Evolving Human Nutrition
Implications for Public Health

Exploration of changing human nutrition from evolutionary and social perspectives and its influence on health and disease, past and present.

Stanley J. Ulijaszek (Author), Neil Mann (Author), Sarah Elton (Author)

9780521869164, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 18 October 2012

414 pages, 66 b/w illus.
23.5 x 15.7 x 2.5 cm, 0.72 kg

'This is an extremely eclectic book that covers the evolutionary background, medical effects, and sociopolitical context of our food.' Grant A. Rutledge and Michael R. Rose, The Quarterly Review of Biology

While most of us live our lives according to the working week, we did not evolve to be bound by industrial schedules, nor did the food we eat. Despite this, we eat the products of industrialization and often suffer as a consequence. This book considers aspects of changing human nutrition from evolutionary and social perspectives. It considers what a 'natural' human diet might be, how it has been shaped across evolutionary time and how we have adapted to changing food availability. The transition from hunter-gatherer and the rise of agriculture through to the industrialisation and globalisation of diet are explored. Far from being adapted to a 'Stone Age' diet, humans can consume a vast range of foodstuffs. However, being able to eat anything does not mean that we should eat everything, and therefore engagement with the evolutionary underpinnings of diet and factors influencing it are key to better public health practice.

Acknowledgements
1. Introduction
Part I. The Animal Within: 2. Locating human diet in a mammalian framework
3. Diet and hominin evolution
4. Seasonality of environment and diet
5. Evolution of human diet and eating behaviour
Part II. A Brave New World: 6. When our brains left our bodies behind: dietary change and health discordance
7. Nutrition and infectious disease, past and present
8. Inequality and nutritional health
Part III. Once upon a Time in the West: 9. Nutrition transition
10. Fats in the global balance
11. Feed the world with carbohydrates
12. Post-script
Index.

Subject Areas: Human biology [PSX], Evolution [PSAJ], Dietetics & nutrition [MBNH3], Personal & public health [MBNH], Anthropology [JHM]