José Miguel Martínez-Carrión - Böcker

Food consumption and nutrition are historically among the most characteristic features of inequality in living standards driven by socioeconomic, gender, generational and geographical reasons. Nutrition directly impacts mortality, life expectancy, height and illness and thus becomes a good indicator of living standards and their evolution over time. However, one issue that remains unresolved is how to measure past diet inequalities with the available sources.This book evaluates nutritional inequalities in Spain from the nineteenth century to the present day. It explores the socioeconomic, gender, generational and geographical variations in food consumption and nutrition in Spain during this period. Deriving historical data on nutrition and diet has always been difficult due to issues with available sources. This book adopts a multi-dimensional approach and two complementary methodologies capable of presenting a more comprehensive picture: the first analyses diets based on primary sources, while the second examines the effect of nutritional inequalities on biological living standards, with special emphasis on average height. This combination allows for greater precision than previous studies on the impacts of food inequality.This book will be of significant interest to scholars from different academic branches, especially historians, economic historians and historians of science, economists, and also doctors, endocrinologists, paediatricians, anthropologists, nutritionists and expert in cooperation and development.

Food consumption and nutrition are historically among the most characteristic features of inequality in living standards driven by socioeconomic, gender, generational and geographical reasons. Nutrition directly impacts mortality, life expectancy, height and illness and thus becomes a good indicator of living standards and their evolution over time. However, one issue that remains unresolved is how to measure past diet inequalities with the available sources.This book evaluates nutritional inequalities in Spain from the nineteenth century to the present day. It explores the socioeconomic, gender, generational and geographical variations in food consumption and nutrition in Spain during this period. Deriving historical data on nutrition and diet has always been difficult due to issues with available sources. This book adopts a multi-dimensional approach and two complementary methodologies capable of presenting a more comprehensive picture: the first analyses diets based on primary sources, while the second examines the effect of nutritional inequalities on biological living standards, with special emphasis on average height. This combination allows for greater precision than previous studies on the impacts of food inequality.This book will be of significant interest to scholars from different academic branches, especially historians, economic historians and historians of science, economists, and also doctors, endocrinologists, paediatricians, anthropologists, nutritionists and expert in cooperation and development.

Drawing on anthropometric data, this book examines the evolution of biological living standards of Latin American populations and evaluates the inequality of nutrition and health in the region in the modern era.Utilising data from the 19th and 20th centuries, and providing broad coverage of Latin America, the chapters analyse the following topics: the evolution of stature before and after independence; the effects of economic modernisation since the 1870s and 1880s, that were accompanied by profound political, demographic, epidemiological and environmental changes that affected biological well-being of the population; the trend and evolution of anthropometric measures associated with nutritional, demographic and epidemiological transitions; the prevalence of malnutrition associated with stunting and obesity in traditional and modern societies, both rural and urban; the reduction or expansion of regional, social, income and educational differences in biological living standards as measured by mean heights; and the evolution of stature sexual dimorphism and the comparative importance of nutritional inequality by race and gender. The book highlights, on the one hand, the importance of anthropometric indicators to analyse living standards and human well-being in historical perspective and, on the other hand, the value of an interdisciplinary approach in examining questions of human growth and biological wellbeing.The book will be of great interest to readers in economic history, Latin American history and studies and the history of inequality and living standards.