NUSCTX 104 Final Exam 2025

Nutrigenomics - -The relationship between genes and diet Diet - -Individually what someone eats Cuisine - -Collectively what a population eats Physical Environment - -Why do we grow what we do? Climate, soil, water, plant life, animal life. Socioeconomic environment - -Broader economic and political environment affects access to food. Sociocultural Environment - -Technology, social organization, and ideology Technology - -A society's technology interacts with other aspects of culture (ex. fire) Social Organization - -Norms that regulate relationships and, in turn, access to food. Family - -Important economic unit responsible for producing and distributing food. Ideology - -Accepted definition of what is food. Possibly shaped by religion, symbolism. Sodium intake - -High and very low sodium intake correlated with CVD Evolution - -Developing a new characteristic Adaptation - -Fine-tuning a characteristic Humans are... - -Opportunistic omnivores SAD - -Standard American Diet: Processed foods, added sugars, sedentary lifestyle, high levels of omega-6 vs omega-3. Microbiome - -Gut bacteria that have evolved with human and dietary evolution. Symbiotic relationship. Evolution of humans - -C/N isotopes in bones and teeth, tooth morphology, dietary behavior of other primates, bones/shells next to hominid bones, locomotion and skeletal anatomy. Ardipithecus group - -7-4 mya, closest link to other primates NUSCTX 104 NUSCTX 104 Australopithecus group - -4-2 mya, walked upright regularly, climbed trees Parathropus group - -3-1 mya, large teeth, powerful jaws Homo group - -2.5 mya, larger brains, tools, expanded beyond Africa The Expensive Tissue hypothesis - -Big brains, small guts: Brains are greedy for glucose, human brain uses 20% of BMR Man-the-Hunter hypothesis - -Human physiology started to change about 2 mya due to increased caloric density from meat The Cooking hypothesis - -Cooking increases overall energy obtained from that food by making digestion easier Homo sapiens - -200,000ya-present, Africa to worldwide, lived through Paleolithic area Paleolithic era - -2.5mya-12,000ya, characterized by development of stone tools, hunter-gatherer societies, low population density. Neolithic era - -12,000ya, aka "agricultural revolution" domestication of plants and animals Agricultural revolution dietary changes - -Lead to population explosion, but also less diverse diet which leads to difficulty achieving balance, nutritional deficiencies, risk of famine, infectious diseases, social inequality. Neolithic era social changes - -Population growth, larger group settlements - social interaction, not everyone had to be involved in getting food, food trade The Industrial Revolution - -Late 18th century, innovative technologies led to mass production. Industrial Revolution dietary changes - -Agriculture became industry, living went from rural to urban, shift in meal patterns, "mixed blessings" regarding food Cultural competency - -The delivery of health services that are respectful of and responsive to the health beliefs, practices, and cultural and linguistic needs of diverse populations. Cultural humility - -The ability of a person to maintain an interpersonal stance that is open to other ways of life in relation to aspects of cultural identity that are most important to the person. Stakeholders in cultural competency - -Funders, plant breeders, nutritional scientists, governments and policy makers, target communities. NUSCTX 104 NUSCTX 104 Conditional Cash Transfers (CCT) - -Programs that transfer cash, generally to poor households on the condition that those households make pre-specified investments in the human capital of their children. CCT incentives - -Provides economic incentive to change behavior regardless of social norms, cost/benefit analysis, individual contexts, etc. Subsistence strategy - -Decisions made by a group of people for the best way to procure food in a particular environment Subsistence strategy: hunter-gatherer - -Paleolithic era --rise of agriculture. Technology included human energy and simple tools. Small communities, placed value on sharing, labor divided by age and gender. Migratory patterns, mostly nomadic. Diet of foragers - -Varied by ecosystem. Highly correlates with degrees latitude. Pedestrian foragers - -Travel by foot, flexible to environmental changes (aboriginals) Equestrian foragers - -Travel by horse, allowed to follow seasonal migration of larger herbivores, more hierarchical political systems Aquatic foragers - -Travel through and rely on water (Inuits of Alaska, almost no plant calories) Pastorialism: animal husbandry - -Obtain food from raising and breeding animals. Arid, open land. Pastorialism - -Few material objects, increased division of labor, little or no concept of land ownership, highly nomadic. Low calories, high protein, high fat, rare heart disease. Horticulture - -Harvest small plots of land for home consumption largely in tropical, humid, high rainfall lands. Relies on human energy, simple tools, slash & burn, supplemented with hunting/gathering, higher pop. density, increased social hierarchy/labor division, semi-permanent villages. Food determined by environment. Susceptible to famine/malnutrition. Intensive agriculture - -Irrigation, animal labor, terracing, crop rotation, fertilizers. Dense population, differentiation of skills, materialism, land ownership, permanent homes/structures, trading, taxes. Cash crops - -Agricultural crop grown for sale, not eaten by household. Hidden hunger - -Chronic lack of vitamins, minerals, and/or other nutrients Poverty and hunger - -Poverty is largest contributor to hunger and malnutrition NUSCTX 104 NUSCTX 104 Availability vs Accessibility - -Food might be available, but poverty may make food inaccessible Double burden of malnutrition - -Persistence of undernutrition along with rapid rise in overweight and obesity Contributing factors to malnutrition in "industrialized populations" - -Access to healthy food, household income and food prices, subsidies, child care and other expenses, education, time constraints Empowerment program: microcredit - -Very small loan to people or communities who lac the usual collateral, steady employment, credit history. Designed to support entrepreneurship, alleviate poverty,