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Ethnopediatrics and Fertility Among the Amele of Lowland Papua New Guinea
Carol L. Jenkins, Peter Heywood ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-sonnet-5-5This is the opening of a book chapter on the Amele, a people of lowland Papua New Guinea. It notes that the poor growth and nutrition of children in Papua New Guinea has long interested researchers, and that infant feeding and child-rearing practices have often been blamed. The chapter uses nutrition and anthropology together to look at selected aspects of Amele ethnopediatrics and how they relate to growth in infancy and early childhood. Only the introduction is available, so no results are given.
Key points
- Children's health and nutritional status in Papua New Guinea has interested investigators since the earliest medical patrols.
- Infant feeding and child-rearing practices have often been considered responsible for the poor growth and nutritional status of these children.
- Ethnographers have recorded beliefs about reproduction, growth, development, food taboos and ethnomedicine, but have rarely shown how these relate to children's growth and health.
- Gajdusek (1963) named this field 'ethnopediatrics'.
- The study combines nutrition and anthropology and focuses on growth in infancy and early childhood among the Amele.
Limitations
Only the introduction is provided, so the methods, data and findings are not available. The metadata country hint 'GN' is not supported by the text, which concerns only Papua New Guinea, and the title mentions fertility but the excerpt does not discuss it.
Abstract
The health and nutritional status of Papua New Guinea&s;s children has captured the interest of numerous investigators ever since the earliest medical patrols. Infant feeding and child-rearing practices in general have often been considered responsible for the frequently documented poor growth and nutritional status of these children ( Becroft 1967 ; Oomen and Malcolm 1958 ; Malcolm 1975 ). While ethnographers have recorded belief systems concerned with reproduction, growth, development, food taboos and ethnomedicine ( Cook and Pflanz-Cook 1981 ; Hogbin 1943 ; Lewis 1980 ; Meiser 1959 ; Whiting 1941 ) they have rarely been in a position to demonstrate the interrelations among these aspects of culture, and their influence on children&s;s growth and health. Gajdusek ( 1963 ) drew attention to these issues as a field of inquiry which he labelled “ethnopediatrics” and defined as “the study of child growth and development and disease patterns in primitive cultures” (p. 554). While a full-scale ethnopediatric study would involve representatives of a number of disciplines, the present investigation limits itself to the combined approaches of nutrition and anthropology. In this chapter we examine selected aspects of the ethnopediatrics of the Amele, a people of lowland Papua New Guinea, and their relationship to growth in infancy and early childhood.