Changing economic activities bring significant cultural, epidemiological, and nutritional transitions. These transitions have important and lifelong effects on the health of populations experiencing them. Infancy represents a critical period when rapid growth and metabolic programming occur, making infants particularly vulnerable to long-lasting biological changes due to such transitions. The objective of this dissertation is to examine the influences of infant growth and health in the context of a long-studied community that is currently experiencing a major economic and nutritional transition. This biocultural study of infant feeding practices and health and growth in the first few years of life was conducted between June 2013 and July 2015 among the Quechua inhabitants of the highland district of Nuñoa in Puno, Peru. As sample of 93 mother-infant dyads completed all participation criteria and 25 of these mothers participated in an additional semi-structured interview. Data from household surveys and semi-structured interviews was used to examine the political economy of infant feeding and how the participation in different economic/subsistence strategies, and the negotiation of household constraints affect infant feeding and interact with infant biology leading to the embodiment of social and economic inequalities in the form of differential infant health and growth. This study contributes to existing anthropological literature in several key ways. First this research has demonstrated that the Nuñoa district is now characterized by three distinct economic productions zones and that living in these zones is associated with differential patterns of infant growth. This research also makes the case for considering contextually specific markers of socioeconomic status but demonstrating that traditional markers and methods of measurement may not be effective in the context of unique micro-environments within given study population. Further, this research tested the relationship between low grade inflammation and subsequent growth in infants using a longitudinal design, thereby demonstrating the impact of immune activation on growth and the variation of inflammation’s effect on infant growth depending on infant age. Finally, by taking a critical biocultural perspective this work also shows that the benefits of economic development and integration into the regional and national economy are not uniform in their distribution across the Nuñoan population. Rather uneven development may be generating new sources of inequality and even result in the repetition of the historical pattern of systemic marginalization of the most rural and indigenous segments of the population.

Last modified

• 03/27/2018

Creator

• Morgan Hoke

DOI

• https://doi.org/10.21985/N23X3W

Subject

• Anthropology

Keyword

• Growth
• Infancy
• Nutrition
• Inequality
• Economic Transition

Date created

• 2017-01-01

Resource type

• Dissertation

Rights statement

• In Copyright