Study Questions - The human diet in evolutionary perspective:

1. What are recommended minimum/ daily intakes? How are requirements and allowances set?
2. What are the two main uses of nutrients from ingested food?
3. Name the main functions of proteins in the body.
4. What is the difference between digestion and absorption?
5. How do cultural food habits affect adequacy of intake?
6. What are the most common nutritional problems today?
7. Describe and compare the diets of the hominids Australopithecus and Homo erectus.
8. What changes in culture and technology affected diet in Australopithecus and Homo erectus?
9. How does the human digestive system compare to that of other primates?
10. What is the discordance hypothesis?

Study Questions - Seed of change:

1. How abrupt is the transition from gathering to gardening?
2. What lifestyle, social and dietary changes are associated with the food revolutions and transitions?
3. How have the food transitions had an impact on human nutritional adaptation?
4. Discuss the potential nutritional consequences of the transition from subsistence to market economies.
5. Define subsistence system. Discuss the activities that make up a subsistence system.
6. Compare and contrast production techniques in traditional agriculture and industrialized agriculture.
7. How do food classifications and food exchange practices describe, and affect social relationships?
8. What are the various hypotheses that have been proposed for explaining food aversions and taboos?
9. What constitutes edible food? Explain what attributes of food make it such an important symbolic medium.

Study Questions- Food classification:

1. Why do Beardsworth and Keil say when humans eat they eat with the mind as much as with the mouth?
2. How do food classifications and food exchange practices describe, and affect social relationships?
3. How do people learn about food in Wamira?
4. How are food traditions transmitted from generation to generation?
5. Among the Waimira are concepts of gender and personal identity transmitted in the same fashion?
6. Compare and contrast the different theoretical approaches (functionalist, structuralist, developmental, biocultural) used in the study of human food systems.
7. How does an individual's nutritional socialization change over their lifetime?
8. Explain how family relationships and boundaries are expressed and reinforced in provisioning, preparation and consumption practices.
9. How are food choices and eating patterns affected by social class? How is social inequality in the household reflected in consumption patterns?
10. What are the potential nutritional consequences?
11. How do our perceptions of procurement, preparation and consumption units affect the results of dietary and nutritional research?

Study Questions - Contemporary eating patterns:

1. Explain how public and private eating have been transformed in the process of industrialization.
2. Explain why sharing of food, which is such a valuable resource, can have important consequences.
3. What are the major changes that we see associated with the commercialization of food.
4. What are the potential nutritional and health consequences of the current trends in eating out?
5. What social and political factors have influenced the U.S. Concept of a Ahealthy Diet@ over the past sixty years?

Study Questions - Human growth and development:

1. What are the patterns of human growth and development?
2. What are the nutritional factors involved in human growth and development?
3. What are the biocultural factors affecting body shape and size?

Study Questions - Cultural construction of the diet:

1. What is a "healthy" diet?
2. Trace the development of the current U.S. dietary guidelines (food pyramid). Critique the main current food pyramids (original, Mediterranean, Asian etc.) and design others that may be more appropriate for you.
3. What broad changes in nutritional ideas have affected what and how North Americans eat?. How does this compare with changes in England?

Study Questions - Anthropological approaches to malnutrition:

1. How are eating disorders defined and what diagnostic tools are used?
2. Are eating disorders culture bound syndromes?
3. What is meant by the tyranny of slenderness? and who is tyrannized?
4. How does Levenstein describe or explain the connection between women=s changing roles and fluctuations in U.S. ideal body type?

Study Questions - Defining and identifying hunger:

1. Who is hungry in America?
2. How is hunger defined and are hunger standards the same in the U.S. as in the rest of the world?
3. Are there gender issues in food distribution in the U.S.?
If so are these reflected in federal and state food programs?
4. How has hunger come to be perceived as a social issue in the U.S. today?
5. Explain Dr. Claire Cassidy's three interpretations of infant malnutrition and the five world views of the hunger problem.
6. What are your own feelings about hunger (world hunger and U.S. hunger)?
7. Discuss your ideas and feelings and how they relate to Cassidy's classification system.