[Paper Spotlight] Effects of a mixed‐subsistence diet on the growth of Hadza children

Check out this new Short Report in the American Journal of Human Biology by FCS friends Trevor Pollom, Kristen Herlosky, Alyssa Crittenden, and their colleagues.

Effects of a mixed‐subsistence diet on the growth of Hadza children

Abstract

Introduction: We investigated the preliminary effects of dietary changes on the anthropometric measurements of child and adolescent Hadza foragers. Methods: We conducted a cross‐sectional study comparing height and weight of participants (aged 0‐17 years) at two time points, 2005 (n = 195) and 2017 (n = 52), from two locations: semi‐nomadic “bush camps” and sedentary “village camps”. World Health Organization (WHO) calculators were used to generate standardized z‐scores for weight‐for‐height (WHZ), weight‐for‐age (WAZ), height‐for‐age (HAZ), and BMI‐for‐age (BMIFAZ). Cross tabulations were constructed for each measurement variable as a function of z‐score categories and the variables year, location, and sex. Results: Residency in a village, and associated mixed‐subsistence diet, was associated with favorable growth, including greater WAZ (P < .001), HAZ (P < .001), and BMIFAZ (P = .004), but not WHZ (P = .717). Regardless of residency location, participants showed an improved WAZ (P = .021) and HAZ (P < .001) in the 2017 study year. We found no sex differences. Discussion and Conclusion: These preliminary findings suggest that a mixed‐subsistence diet may confer advantages over an exclusive wild food diet, a trend also reported among other transitioning foragers.

[New FCS paper!] Socialization, Autonomy, and Cooperation: Task Assignment among the BaYaka

We're thrilled to share the newest FCS paper by Adam Boyette and Sheina Lew-Levy, out now in Ethos, entitled "Socialization, Autonomy, and Cooperation: Insights from Task Assignment Among the Egalitarian BaYaka". The article is open access (hooray!) and can be found here.

Abstract: "Across diverse societies, task assignment is a socialization practice that gradually builds children's instrumental skills and integrates them into the flow of daily activities in their community. However, psychosocial tensions can arise when cooperation is demanded from children. Through their compliance or noncompliance, they learn cultural norms and values related to autonomy and obligations to others. Here, we investigate task assignment among BaYaka foragers of the Republic of the Congo, among whom individual autonomy is a foundational cultural schema. Our analysis is based on systematic observations, participant observation, and informal interviews with adults about their perspectives on children's learning and noncompliance, as well as their own learning experiences growing up. We find that children are assigned fewer tasks as they age. However, children's rate of noncompliance remains steady across childhood, indicating an early internalization of a core value for autonomy. Despite demonstrating some frustration with children's noncompliance, adults endorse their autonomy and remember task assignment being critical to their own learning as children. We argue that cross‐cultural variation in children's compliance with task assignments must be understood within a larger framework of socialization as constituted by many integrated and bidirectional processes embedded in a social, ecological, and cultural context."

[Call for papers] European Association of Archaeologists (EAA) Annual Meeting

For those of you who work on childhood and material culture, Taryn Bell is co-organizing a symposium entitled 'The Material Culture of Attachment: Social Bonds, Childhood and Emotionally Important Objects'.

If you're interested in submitting an abstract, you can do so at the EAA website - the deadline is 11th February so there is plenty of time. If prospective speakers would like to run an idea past Taryn or the other organizers, drop her an email!