Ancient bodies, modern lives [electronic resource] : how evolution has shaped women's health / Wenda Trevathan.

ISBN:

9780199750542

Title:

Author:

Trevathan, Wenda.

Personal Author:

Trevathan, Wenda.

Publication Information:

New York : Oxford University Press, 2010.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (vii, 260 pages) : illustrations

Contents:

Are we grown up yet? -- Vicious cycles -- Getting pregnant: why can't everyone just get along? -- Staying pregnant -- Welcome to the world -- The greasy, helpless one-hour old human newborn -- Women are defined by their breasts -- But women are more than breasts -- If reproduction is what it's all about, why does it stop? -- What good are old women? quite a lot, thank you -- Implications for women's health in the 21st century and preventing the epidemiological collision.

Local Note:

eBooks on EBSCOhost

Subject Term:

Women -- Health and hygiene.

Evolution (Biology)

Format:

Electronic Resources

Electronic Access:

Click here to view

Publication Date:

2010

Publication Information:

New York : Oxford University Press, 2010.

Available:*

Shelf Number	Material Type	Copy	Shelf Location	Status
613.04244 22	1:E-BOOK	1	1:ONLINE	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

Winner of the 2011 W.W. Howells Book Award of the American Anthropological AssociationHow has bipedalism impacted human childbirth? Do PMS and postpartum depression have specific, maybe even beneficial, functions? These are only two of the many questions that specialists in evolutionary medicine seek to answer, and that anthropologist Wenda Trevathan addresses in Ancient Bodies, Modern Lives. Exploring a range of women's health issues that may be viewed through an evolutionary lens, specifically focusing on reproduction, Trevathan delves into issues such as the medical consequences of early puberty in girls, the impact of migration, culture change, and poverty on reproductive health, and how fetal growth retardation affects health in later life. Hypothesizing that many of the health challenges faced by women today result from a mismatch between how their bodies have evolved and the contemporary environments in which modern humans live, Trevathan sheds light on the power and potential of examining the human life cycle from an evolutionary perspective, and how this could improve our understanding of women's health and our ability to confront health challenges in more creative, effective ways.

Author Notes

Wenda Trevathan, PhD, is the Regents Professor of Anthropology at New Mexico State University. A biological anthropologist whose research focuses on the evolutionary and biocultural factors underlying human reproduction, she published Evolutionary Medicine and Health: New Perspectives in 2008 with OUP.