The Metabolic Ghetto
An Evolutionary Perspective on Nutrition, Power Relations and Chronic Disease

A multidisciplinary analysis of the role of nutrition in generating hierarchical societies and cultivating a global epidemic of chronic diseases.

Jonathan C. K. Wells (Author)

9781108737579, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 28 March 2019

623 pages, 187 b/w illus. 27 tables
24.5 x 17.1 x 3 cm, 1.04 kg

'The Metabolic Ghetto is both a scholarly book and a call to action. Wells's arguments are carefully presented and well documented … Readers who are interested in the ways in which social structures affect health and who would like to understand the central role of nutrition in mediating the effects of socioeconomic inequalities on health will learn much from this book. Readers who are interested in global health will especially welcome Wells's international perspective and his concern for the health of people in low- and middle-income countries as well as for those in economically advantaged societies. … the readers who will be most attracted to the book are those who, in Marx's words, believe that the task of natural philosophers is not only to interpret the world but to change it.' Robert L. Perlman, American Journal of Physical Anthropology

Chronic diseases have rapidly become the leading global cause of morbidity and mortality, yet there is poor understanding of this transition, or why particular social and ethnic groups are especially susceptible. In this book, Wells adopts a multidisciplinary approach to human nutrition, emphasising how power relations shape the physiological pathways to obesity, diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular disease. Part I reviews the physiological basis of chronic diseases, presenting a 'capacity-load' model that integrates the nutritional contributions of developmental experience and adult lifestyle. Part II presents an evolutionary perspective on the sensitivity of human metabolism to ecological stresses, highlighting how social hierarchy impacts metabolism on an intergenerational timescale. Part III reviews how nutrition has changed over time, as societies evolved and coalesced towards a single global economic system. Part IV integrates these physiological, evolutionary and politico-economic perspectives in a unifying framework, to deepen our understanding of the societal basis of metabolic ill-health.

Preface
1. Introduction
Part I. The Physiology of Chronic Disease: 2. Models of chronic disease
3. Links between nutrition and health
4. The developmental origins of disease
5. Life-course models of chronic disease aetiology
6. Applying the capacity-load model
Part II. An Evolutionary Perspective on Human Metabolism: 7. Life history strategy
8. Ancestral environments
9. The evolution of human adaptability
10. Sensitivity in early life
11. The evolutionary biology of inequality
12. The metabolic ghetto
Part III. A Historical Perspective on Human Nutrition: 13. The emergence of agriculture
14. Trade, capitalism and imperialism
15. Hierarchy and metabolic capacity
16. The emergence of consumerism
17. Enforcing obedience
18. The dual burden of malnutrition
Part IV. Power, Nutrition and Society: 19. A series of games
20. A question of agency
Epilogue
Index.

Subject Areas: Medical anthropology [PSXM], Human biology [PSX], Genetics [non-medical PSAK], Evolution [PSAJ], Biology, life sciences [PS], Environmental economics [KCN], Politics & government [JP], Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC]