J Wells
Biographic Data
| ID | 15343 |
|---|---|
| NAME | J Wells |
| GIVEN NAMES | J |
| FAMILY NAME | Wells |
| SIGNATURE | WELLS J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Great Ormond Street Hospital |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0411-8025 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 131 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 437 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 131 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1912 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
Organ Size and Metabolic Rate Co‐Vary with Dimensions of the Obstetric Pelvis: The Metabolic Coordination of Childbirth Hypothesis
Research with formerly incarcerated mothers: Considering former prisoners’ vulnerabilities with feminist rhetorical research practices
Drawing from my experience conducting in-depth interviews and focus groups with formerly incarcerated mothers in the United States, this article encourages qualitative researchers to consider former prisoners a vulnerable population and offers feminist rhetorical methods and methodologies as a theoretical framework for navigating the tensions research creates for former prisoners. While former prisoners possess more agency than the incarcerated, …
Association between travel time to health centres and defaulting of outpatient treatment for severe acute malnutrition in children: Evidence from the Tisa cluster-randomised trial in Senegal
“We Are the Mothers”: Reestablishing an Ethos of Motherhood to Include Incarceration
This article uses Karlyn Kohrs Campbell’s theory of rhetorical agency in combination with Lindal Buchanan’s Woman/Mother continuum to identify how incarcerated mothers use their maternal attributes to construct moral identities in the texts they submit to the American Prison Writing Archive. My analysis reveals that incarcerated mothers uphold traditional ideologies of motherhood and frame their incarceration within the context of motherhood to r…
The association between paternal labour migration and the growth of the left-behind children—evidence from a birth cohort in Dhanusha district, Nepal
INTRODUCTION: We aimed to determine the association between paternal labour migration and the growth of the left-behind children in Dhanusha district, Nepal, where child stunting and international labour migration are highly prevalent. METHODS: -score (HAZ). Children's body circumferences, skinfold thicknesses, body composition, tibia length and grip strength were secondary outcomes measured at 6 years. We tested (i) the overall association betwe…
Experimental evidence of life history trade-offs during ultra-endurance physical activity
Life history theory seeks to understand how organisms distribute energy between physiological functions across the life course. A central assumption is that energy allocation involves “trade-offs” between competing functions relating to defence, maintenance, reproduction and growth. Constraints on human energy expenditure may produce trade-offs during energetic stress, affecting functions critical for homeostasis, survival and reproduction. While…
Association Between Relative Leg Length and Insulin Resistance in Rural, Urban and Rural–Urban Migrant Populations of Peru
OBJECTIVE: To determine the association between relative leg length and insulin resistance according to rural, urban, and rural-urban migrant groups. METHODS: Cross-sectional study using data from the PERU MIGRANT study (2007-2008). The exposure was relative leg length categorized as short, normal, or long, and the outcome was insulin resistance (logarithm of homeostatic model assessment log-HOMA2-IR). Linear regression models with log transforma…
The Maternal Capital Hypothesis: Giving Mothers Central Place in Evolutionary Perspectives on Developmental Plasticity and Health
The “developmental origins of health and disease” paradigm has revolutionized biomedical research and raised new questions in the public domain. Not only individual disease risk, but also population health inequalities, may be profoundly shaped by experience early in life. The maternal capital hypothesis, published in 2010, is an evolutionary conceptual framework for understanding developmental plasticity on an intergenerational time‐scale. The c…
Early Marriage, Preterm Birth, and School Dropout: An Intergenerational Cycle of Risk
Background Across generations, girls' early marriage recurs in high‐risk groups; however there is poor understanding of how behavior and biology interact in this context. We hypothesized an intergenerational cycle of risk, linking early marriage, preterm birth, and school dropout, and evaluated evidence for specific components of this cycle in low‐/middle‐income countries. Methods We conducted a systematized review, searching articles published f…
From Insult to Injury: Exploring the Associations Between Severe Malnutrition in Childhood, Rehabilitation Weight Gain and Adult Adiposity in a Prospective Cohort Study
The relationships between severe malnutrition (SM), rehabilitation weight gain, and cardiometabolic risk in adult survivors have not been fully elucidated. We utilised a previously collected data set to explore these associations in a cohort of adults who were hospitalised for SM as children from 1963 to 1995. We studied 278 adult SM survivors: 60% male; median age (IQR) 26.5(11.3) years; mean BMI 23.6(5.2) kg/m 2 ). Children's minimum weight-for…
Determinants of Infant Growth in a Birth Cohort in the Nepal Plains
This study aimed to identify the determinants of infant growth in terms of length-for-age z-score (LAZ) in a birth cohort (n = 602) in the plains of Nepal. Children were enrolled within 72 h of birth and followed-up every 28 days until they were 2 years. We fitted mixed-effects linear regression models controlling for multiple measurements within individuals to examine the impact of household and maternal factors, feeding practices and infection …
Associations of parental internal migration with child growth and nutritional status in low- and middle-income countries: A systematic review
Maternal mental health and nutritional status of infants aged under 6 months: A secondary analysis of a cross-sectional survey
Maternal/caregivers’ mental health (MMH) and child nutrition are both poor in low- and middle-income countries. Links between the two are plausible but poorly researched. Our aim was to inform future malnutrition management programmes by better understanding associations between MMH and nutritional status of infants aged under six month (u6m). We conducted a health facility-based cross-sectional survey of 1060 infants in rural Ethiopia, between O…
The impact of maternal mood and economic stress during Covid-19 pandemic on infant behaviour: Findings from the cross-sectional UK Covid-19 New Mum Study
The UK Covid-19 New Mum Study (cross-sectional study) recorded maternal experience during the early stages of the pandemic. Our previous analyses showed that the pandemic and 2020 national lockdown negatively impacted maternal mental health. Here, we describe changes in infant behaviour (crying and fussiness) reported by the mother during the Covid-19 pandemic compared to beforehand, and test whether these changes are associated with maternal var…
Methods for measuring body composition in Zambian adolescents living with HIV
Assessment of body composition can be useful in managing many clinical or public health conditions, including HIV. Most people living with HIV infection are in Africa where clinics may lack equipment, utilities or staff time for optimal body composition assessment. Thus, it is important to determine whether less expensive and more available and scalable methods can provide adequate information. We estimated body composition of 420 perinatally HIV…
Evaluating the Concept of Brain Sparing in a High Income Setting, Using Historical Records of Maternal Influenza or Syphilis Infection
INTRODUCTION: In the context of adverse in utero environments, the fetal brain might be preserved at the expense of other tissues. This trade-off, brain sparing, has not been studied in the context of maternal infection. We investigated cases of maternal syphilis in the early 20th century and influenza during the 1918-1920 pandemic, in the Swiss city of Lausanne, a relatively high-income setting. We tested the brain sparing hypothesis, that head …
Generational trends in the transition to womanhood in lowland rural Nepal: Changes in the meaning of early marriage
OBJECTIVE: In South Asia, studies show secular trends toward slightly later women's marriage and first reproduction. However, data on related biological and social events, such as menarche and age of coresidence with husband, are often missing from these analyses. We assessed generational trends in key life events marking the transition to womanhood in rural lowland Nepal. METHODS: We used data on 110 co-resident mother-in-law (MIL) and daughter-…
Association between birth length, linear growth velocities, and primary school achievement at age 10 years: Evidence from the Ethiopian iABC birth cohort
Greater birth length and higher growth velocity from 6 to 24 months were associated with higher school achievement and being in the appropriate grade-for-age, respectively. Children who experienced growth failure were less likely to achieve a high MES score. Interventions aimed at improving school achievement should address maternal and fetal nutrition and health, and monitor post-natal growth
Testing the expensive-tissue hypothesis’ prediction of inter-tissue competition using causal modelling with latent variables
The expensive-tissue hypothesis (ETH) posited a brain–gut trade-off to explain how humans evolved large, costly brains. Versions of the ETH interrogating gut or other body tissues have been tested in non-human animals, but not humans. We collected brain and body composition data in 70 South Asian women and used structural equation modelling with instrumental variables, an approach that handles threats to causal inference including measurement err…
The role of education in child and adolescent marriage in rural lowland Nepal
Marriage during childhood and adolescence adversely affects maternal and child health and well-being, making it a critical global health issue. Analysis of factors associated with women marrying ≥18 years has limited utility in societies where the norm is to marry substantially earlier. This paper investigated how much education Nepali women needed to delay marriage across the range of ages from 15 to ≥18 years. Data on 6,406 women aged 23-30 yea…
Faster rehabilitation weight gain during childhood is associated with risk of non-communicable disease in adult survivors of severe acute malnutrition
Nutritional rehabilitation during severe acute malnutrition (SAM) aims to quickly restore body size and minimize poor short-term outcomes. We hypothesized that faster weight gain during treatment is associated with greater cardiometabolic risk in adult life. Anthropometry, body composition (DEXA), blood pressure, blood glucose, insulin and lipids were measured in a cohort of adults who were hospitalized as children for SAM between 1963 and 1993. …
Stress and resilience during pregnancy: A comparative study between pregnant and non-pregnant women in Ethiopia
Background Stress during pregnancy is associated with perturbances in maternal psychology and physiology, and results in adverse pregnancy and birth outcomes. However, little attention has been given to understand maternal stress and its potential negative consequences in many low- and middle-income countries. We aimed to investigate whether pregnancy is associated with greater stress and lower psychological resilience among women living in Jimma…
How age and sex affect treatment outcomes for children with severe malnutrition: A multi‐country secondary data analysis
Age and sex influence the risk of childhood wasting. We aimed to determine if wasting treatment outcomes differ by age and sex in children under 5 years, enroled in therapeutic and supplementary feeding programmes. Utilising data from stage 1 of the ComPAS trial, we used logistic regression to assess the association between age, sex and wasting treatment outcomes (recovery, death, default, non-response, and transfer), modelling the likelihood of …
Childhood BMI and other measures of body composition as a predictor of cardiometabolic non-communicable diseases in adulthood: A systematic review
Objective: There is growing evidence that childhood malnutrition is associated with non-communicable diseases (NCD) in adulthood and that body composition mediates some of this association. This review aims to determine if childhood body composition can be used to predict later-life cardiometabolic NCD and which measures of body composition predicts future NCD. Design: Electronic databases were searched for articles where: children aged under 5 y…
Post-malnutrition growth and its associations with child survival and non-communicable disease risk: A secondary analysis of the Malawi ‘ChroSAM’ cohort
Objective: To explore patterns of post-malnutrition growth (PMGr) during and after treatment for severe malnutrition and describe associations with survival and non-communicable disease (NCD) risk 7 years post-treatment. Design: Six indicators of PMGr were derived based on a variety of timepoints, weight, weight-for-age z-score and height-for-age z-score (HAZ). Three categorisation methods included no categorisation, quintiles and latent class an…
Energetics and the Evolution of the GenusHomo
The genus Homo as represented by Homo ergaster (= early African Homo erectus) is characterized by a pattern of features that is more similar to modern humans than to the earlier and contemporaneous australopithecines and paranthropines. These features include larger relative brain sizes, larger bodies, slower rates of growth and maturation, dedicated bipedal locomotion, and smaller teeth and jaws. These features are phenotypic expressions of a ve…
The obstetric dilemma: An ancient game of Russian roulette, or a variable dilemma sensitive to ecology
The difficult birth process of humans, often described as the “obstetric dilemma,” is commonly assumed to reflect antagonistic selective pressures favoring neonatal encephalization and maternal bipedal locomotion. However, cephalo‐pelvic disproportion is not exclusive to humans, and is present in some primate species of smaller body size. The fossil record indicates mosaic evolution of the obstetric dilemma, involving a number of different evolut…
The biology of the colonizing ape
Hominin evolutionary history is characterized by regular dispersals, cycles of colonization, and entry into novel environments. This article considers the relationship between such colonizing capacity and hominin biology. In general, colonizing strategy favors rapid rates of reproduction and generalized rather than specialized biology. Physiological viability across diverse environments favors a high degree of phenotypic plasticity, which buffers…
Ecogeographical associations between climate and human body composition: Analyses based on anthropometry and skinfolds
In the 19th century, two “ecogeographical rules” were proposed hypothesizing associations of climate with mammalian body size and proportions. Data on human body weight and relative leg length support these rules; however, it is unknown whether such associations are attributable to lean tissue (the heat‐producing component) or fat (energy stores). Data on weight, height, and two skinfold thickness were obtained from the literature for 137 nonindu…
A History of Persia
Associations of economic and gender inequality with global obesity prevalence: Understanding the female excess
Epidemiology of leisure-time physical activity: A population-based study in southern Brazil
We aimed to measure the prevalence of physical inactivity (PI) during leisure time and to identify variables associated with it in a southern Brazilian adult population. A population-based cross-sectional study was carried out, covering a multiple-stage sample of 1,968 subjects aged 20-69 years. Weekly participation in leisure-time physical activity was addressed. For each activity, energy expenditure was calculated using data on duration, metabo…
Birth weight and environmental heat load: A between‐population analysis
Low birth weight, a major cause of infant morbidity and mortality, is caused by different factors in Western and developing‐country populations. In addition to differing in terms of ethnicity, maternal size, maternal nutritional status, and disease load, developing‐country and Western populations are also characterized by different environmental heat loads. Thermodynamic theory predicts that heat stress is mitigated by reduced size of both mother…
The Capital Economy in Hominin Evolution: How Adipose Tissue and Social Relationships Confer Phenotypic Flexibility and Resilience in Stochastic Environments
The global distribution of our species indicates a biology capable of adapting to an extraordinary range of ecosystems, generating interest in how such a biology evolved. Whereas much attention has been directed to genetic adaptation and developmental plasticity as adaptive strategies, ecological stochasticity within the life course may be addressed by additional strategies such as bet hedging and phenotypic flexibility. Both social relationships…
Digit ratio (2D: (4D) and rowing ergometer performance in males and females
Fetal and adult testosterone may be vital in the establishment and maintenance of sex‐dependent abilities associated with male physical competitiveness. It has been shown that digit ratio (2D:4D) is negatively associated with prenatal testosterone, and it is also negatively associated with ability in sports such as football, skiing, middle distance running, and endurance running, which are dependent upon an efficient cardiovascular system. The re…
Herodotus and Athens
Beyond Bergmann's rule: Global variability in human body composition is associated with annual average precipitation and annual temperature volatility
OBJECTIVES: Human populations exhibit substantial geographical variability in body size and shape. However, the ecological stresses underlying this morphological variability remain poorly understood. The prevailing evolutionary explanation, "Bergmann's rule" assumes that morphological variability represents an adaptive response to average thermal conditions. We hypothesized that other climate factors-annual average precipitation, a marker of ecol…
Relationship between body mass, lean mass, fat mass, and limb bone cross‐sectional geometry: Implications for estimating body mass and physique from the skeleton
OBJECTIVES: Estimating body mass from skeletal dimensions is widely practiced, but methods for estimating its components (lean and fat mass) are poorly developed. The ability to estimate these characteristics would offer new insights into the evolution of body composition and its variation relative to past and present health. This study investigates the potential of long bone cross-sectional properties as predictors of body, lean, and fat mass. M…
Ultra-endurance athletic performance suggests that energetics drive human morphological thermal adaptation
The impact of the Covid-19 lockdown on the experiences and feeding practices of new mothers in the UK: Preliminary data from the Covid-19 New Mum Study
Relationships of maternal and paternal anthropometry with neonatal body size, proportions and adiposity in an Australian cohort
The patterns of association between maternal or paternal and neonatal phenotype may offer insight into how neonatal characteristics are shaped by evolutionary processes, such as conflicting parental interests in fetal investment and obstetric constraints. Paternal interests are theoretically served by maximizing fetal growth, and maternal interests by managing investment in current and future offspring, but whether paternal and maternal influence…
Birth month associations with height, head circumference, and limb lengths among peruvian children
Associations between season of birth and body size, morbidity, and mortality have been widely documented, but it is unclear whether different parts of the body are differentially sensitive, and if such effects persist through childhood. This may be relevant to understanding the relationship between early life environment and body size and proportions. We investigated associations between birth month and anthropometry among rural highland ( n = 16…
Association between infant correlates of impulsivity - surgency (extraversion) - and early infant growth
Energetics as a driver of human morphological thermal adaptation; evidence from female ultra-endurance athletes
Functional benefits of the morphologies described by Bergmann's and Allen's rules in human males have recently been reported. However, the functional implications of ecogeographical patterning in females remain poorly understood. Here, we report the findings of preliminary work analysing the association between body shape and performance in female ultramarathon runners (n = 36) competing in hot and cold environments. The body shapes differed betw…
Ecological volatility and human evolution: A novel perspective on life history and reproductive strategy
Humans are characterized by a suite of traits that seem to differentiate them profoundly from closely related apes such as the gorilla, chimpanzee, and orang-utan. These traits include longevity, cooperative breeding, stacking of offspring, lengthy maturation, and a complex life-course profile of adiposity. When, how, and why these traits emerged during our evolutionary history is currently attracting considerable attention. Most approaches to li…
Coming together: The role of marriage in assorting household educational and geographical capital in rural lowland Nepal
This paper investigates how educational and geographic capital are assorted among households in rural Nepal, and how women's marital age may shape this distribution. Our focus on the timing of marriage adds a new dimension to studies of geographies of youth and marital assortment, while our emphasis on the physical and spatial attributes of households leads us to propose the concept of geographic capital, operationalised here as agrarian landhold…
Human athletic paleobiology; using sport as a model to investigate human evolutionary adaptation
The use of sport as a conceptual framework offers unprecedented opportunities to improve our understanding of what the body does, shedding new light on our evolutionary trajectory, our capacity for adaptation, and the underlying biological mechanisms. This approach has gained traction over recent years. To date, sport has facilitated exploration not only of the evolutionary history of our species as a whole, but also of human variation and adapta…
Tandem Androgenic and Psychological Shifts in Male Reproductive Effort Following a Manipulated "Win" or "Loss" in a Sporting Competition
Male-male competition is involved in inter- and intrasexual selection, with both endocrine and psychological factors presumably contributing to reproductive success in human males. We examined relationships among men's naturally occurring testosterone, their self-perceived mate value (SPMV), self-esteem, sociosexuality, and expected likelihood of approaching attractive women versus situations leading to child involvement. We then monitored change…
Independent associations of women's age at marriage and first pregnancy with their height in rural lowland Nepal
OBJECTIVES: In many South Asian communities, the majority of women are married during adolescence and reproduce before 20 years. Early reproduction may adversely affect maternal nutrition and linear growth, however whether early marriage has similar effects is unknown. Shorter women might also be preferentially chosen for earlier marriage. We hypothesized that early marriage and early pregnancy may each be associated with women's shorter height, …
Mothers' food choices and consumption of ultra-processed foods in the Brazilian Amazon: A grounded theory study
A Commentary on Herodotus
A History of Persia
Herodotus and Athens
Energy cost of physical activity in twelve week old infants
The energy cost of physical activity has long remained the component of energy expenditure most difficult to quantify. Measurement of total energy expenditure (TEE) in free-living infants by the doubly-labelled water method permits a new approach. The energy cost of activity was estimated in 12 week infants as the difference between TEE and the sum of minimal metabolic rate, the energy cost of tissue synthesis, and thermogenesis. No differences w…
Diet and behavioural activity in 12-week-old infants
Deposition of excess dietary energy occurs if energy intake exceeds expenditure. Anthropometric differences between breast-fed and formula-fed infants due to differences in energy deposition are frequently reported. It has been suggested that infant obesity may result from decreased levels of energy expenditure on physical activity. Infant diet may therefore influence energy balance by affecting behaviour and hence energy expenditure. Behavioural…
Relationship between behavior and energy expenditure in 12‐week‐old infants
In order to apply current international recommendations of basing energy requirements on energy expenditures (FAO/WHO/UNU [1985] Energy and Protein Requirements WHO: Geneva) to infants, it is first necessary to ascertain which aspects of infant physical activity significantly influence energy expenditure. The relationship between behavioral activity and energy expenditure was, therefore, investigated in 12 week infants. Behavior was assessed usin…
Relationship between behavior and energy expenditure in 12-week-old infants
In order to apply current international recommendations of basing energy requirements on energy expenditures (FAO/WHO/UNU [1985] Energy and Protein Requirements WHO: Geneva) to infants, it is first necessary to ascertain which aspects of infant physical activity significantly influence energy expenditure. The relationship between behavioral activity and energy expenditure was, therefore, investigated in 12 week infants. Behavior was assessed usin…
Physical activity at 9–12 months and fatness at 2 years of age
Previous research has shown that physical activity in early infancy does not predict later fatness, whereas in preschool children, such a relationship is found. The objective of this study was to investigate whether total energy expenditure (TEE) and behavior in late infancy are related to subcutaneous and total fatness in early childhood. Twenty‐six infants were studied at 9–12 months and followed up at 2 years of age. Anthropometry, body compos…
Birth weight and environmental heat load: A between‐population analysis
Low birth weight, a major cause of infant morbidity and mortality, is caused by different factors in Western and developing‐country populations. In addition to differing in terms of ethnicity, maternal size, maternal nutritional status, and disease load, developing‐country and Western populations are also characterized by different environmental heat loads. Thermodynamic theory predicts that heat stress is mitigated by reduced size of both mother…
Energetics and the Evolution of the GenusHomo
The genus Homo as represented by Homo ergaster (= early African Homo erectus) is characterized by a pattern of features that is more similar to modern humans than to the earlier and contemporaneous australopithecines and paranthropines. These features include larger relative brain sizes, larger bodies, slower rates of growth and maturation, dedicated bipedal locomotion, and smaller teeth and jaws. These features are phenotypic expressions of a ve…
Physical Inactivity: Prevalence and Associated Variables in Brazilian Adults
PURPOSE: To measure the prevalence of physical inactivity, and variables associated with it, in an adult southern Brazilian population. METHODS: Population-based cross-sectional study covering a multiple-stage sample of 3182 subjects aged 20 yr or more. Physical activity was assessed through the short version of the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ), using home interviews with last-week recall. The questionnaire covers leisure,…
Cumulative effects assessment and EIA follow-up: A proposed community-based monitoring program in the Oil Sands Region, northeastern Alberta
The Mikisew Cree First Nation (MCFN) intervened at the regulatory hearings for two recently proposed Oil Sands developments because of concerns relating to cumulative environmental effects to the water resource. A gap analysis conducted by IEG of current monitoring initiatives indicated that the MCFN requested more changes to monitoring processes (such as meaningful input, transparency, authenticity) than to monitoring initiatives (such as additi…
Sustainability of sawn timber supply in Tanzania
Timber is an important commodity in African towns. This paper reports the findings from research into the supply of timber to Dar es Salaam and Mwanza (Tanzania). Tanzania has reserves of hardwood timber in the natural forest and softwood timber in plantations. Information gathered from consumers, producers and traders was used to estimate consumption, analyse changing patterns of supply and assess sustainability. Analysis of the hardwood supply …
Fetal and infant head circumference sexual dimorphism in primates
Studies have shown that after controlling for the effects of body size on brain size, the brains of adult humans, rhesus monkeys, and chimpanzees differ in relative size, where males have a greater volume of cerebral tissue than females. We assess whether head circumference sexual dimorphism is present during early development by evaluating sex differences in relative head circumference in living fetuses and infants within the first year of life.…
Epidemiology of leisure-time physical activity: A population-based study in southern Brazil
We aimed to measure the prevalence of physical inactivity (PI) during leisure time and to identify variables associated with it in a southern Brazilian adult population. A population-based cross-sectional study was carried out, covering a multiple-stage sample of 1,968 subjects aged 20-69 years. Weekly participation in leisure-time physical activity was addressed. For each activity, energy expenditure was calculated using data on duration, metabo…
Adolescent Physical Activity and Health: A Systematic Review
A trade-off between early growth rate and fluctuating asymmetry in Brazilian boys
Our results support the 'good development' hypothesis, and suggest that growth rate during an early post-natal critical window, previously linked to numerous health outcomes, also has long-term effects on FA
Sexual dimorphism of body composition
The biology of the colonizing ape
Hominin evolutionary history is characterized by regular dispersals, cycles of colonization, and entry into novel environments. This article considers the relationship between such colonizing capacity and hominin biology. In general, colonizing strategy favors rapid rates of reproduction and generalized rather than specialized biology. Physiological viability across diverse environments favors a high degree of phenotypic plasticity, which buffers…
The Evolutionary Biology of Human Body Fatness: Thrift and Control
This comprehensive synthesis of current medical and evolutionary literature addresses key questions about the role body fat plays in human biology. It explores how body energy stores are regulated, how they develop over the life-course, what biological functions they serve, and how they may have evolved. There is now substantial evidence that human adiposity is not merely a buffer against the threat of starvation, but is also a resource for meeti…
Experience and sentence processing: Statistical learning and relative clause comprehension
Maternal capital and the metabolic ghetto: An evolutionary perspective on the transgenerational basis of health inequalities
There is particular interest in understanding socioeconomic and ethnic variability in health status. The developmental origins of disease hypothesis emphasize the importance of growth patterns across the life‐course in relation to noncommunicable disease risk. The physiological components of cardiovascular risk, collectively termed the metabolic syndrome, derive in part from a disparity between the homeostatic “metabolic capacity” of vital organs…
Independent changes in female body shape with parity and age: A life‐history approach to female adiposity
Both aging and reproduction have been shown to influence female body shape in industrialized populations, involving redistribution of fat from lower to upper body regions. However, the extent to which effects of parity vary by age and the extent to which age affects shape independent of parity remain unclear. We studied shape variability in relation to age and parity in a cross‐sectional survey of 4,130 white British women, using three‐dimensiona…
Reproduction, aging, and body shape by three‐dimensional photonic scanning in Thai men and women
Objectives: Aging and reproduction have been independently associated with body shape in women, with redistribution of body fat from lower to upper body regions. This may be interpreted as a life history strategy for allocating energy between competing peripheral fat depots for reproduction, and central fat depots for maintenance and survival. It remains unclear whether men show similar life history strategy in shape. The objectives of this study…
The thrifty phenotype: An adaptation in growth or metabolism
The thrifty phenotype hypothesis is widely used to interpret associations between early nutritional experience and degenerative disease risks. However, it remains unclear what is adaptive about early life thrift, and biomedical approaches struggle to explain why associations between early growth and later disease hold across the entire range of birth size. This issue can be addressed using a simple model, attributing disease to a high metabolic l…
Medicine (96 works) · Demography (62 works) · Biology (50 works) · Internal Medicine (50 works) · Obesity, Physical Activity, Diet (37 works) · Birth, Development, and Health (36 works) · Population (35 works) · Child Nutrition and Water Access (32 works) · Environmental health (31 works) · Psychology (30 works)