This course will take a biocultural approach to the study of diet and
nutrition.  We will explore the biological and material basis of diet
and the biological consequences of dietary choices, and how these are
also related to cultural variability in food use.  The course will
start with a review of basic concepts in nutrition and the assessment
of nutritional status.  We will then turn to the role of diet in human
evolution, and how diet may contribute to biological variation among
humans.  Following that we will focus on how and why people choose
specific foods and the adaptive significance of such choices. We will
then consider how foods have become globalized, and how political,
economic, and cultural factors influence nutritional outcomes
(e.g.under- or overconsumption) and the construction of food and
nutrition policies related to those outcomes.