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| Name: | Peter J. Brown |
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| Position: |
Professor of Anthropology Professor of School of Public Health, Global Health |
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| Degree: |
Ph.D., State University of New York, 1979 M.A., State University of New York, 1976 |
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| Programs: |
NHS,
Full Member |
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| Phone: | 404 727-5760 | |
| Address: | 215 Geology Building, 1518/002/1AA | |
| Email: | antpjb@emory.edu | |
| Research Descriptions: | ||
| Short: | Nutrition and disease. | |
| Long: | An anthropological approach to questions of nutrition and health uses an evolutionary paradigm in conjunction with cross-cultural analysis. It is concerned with the interaction of learned cultural behaviors with genetic inheritance. My work in medical anthropology is primarily concerned with disease ecology as it relates to cultural practices. This approach has value for understanding the social epidemiological distribution of disease, especially in terms of ethnicity and social class. Recent research in the etiology of obesity, for example, strongly suggests a genetic component that enables individuals to use food efficiently and store energy reserves in the form of adipose tissue. The frequency of these genes in certain populations is the result of natural selection operating through food shortages. The new research on the genetics of obesity, however, highlights our ignorance about non-genetic cultural factors that are necessary conditions for the disease to occur. My research in this area emphasizes the cultural dimensions of eating behavior, cultural ideals of the body, and social stresses that predispose people to obesity or eating disorders. Another line of work, on biology-culture interaction in disease ecology is the problem of fava bean consumption, G-6-Pd deficiency, favism disease, and the historical distribution of malaria in the Mediterranean. | |