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Biocultural Models of Human Growth

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Human growth is part of the biocultural nature of our species. Since the late 19th century, anthropologists (such as Boas) have used biocultural models of human development. By the mid-20th century, the discovery of the nature of DNA and other fundamentals of developmental biology led to a biocultural model that considered human development as, basically, a biological process which could be influenced to a greater or lesser extent by the social and cultural environment.

By the late 20th century, the biocultural model was revised to show that there is a recurring interaction between the biology of human development and the socio-cultural environment. Not only does the latter influence the former, but human developmental biology modifies social and cultural processes as well. Global trends toward taller stature over the past 150 years and toward overweight and obesity in the past 20 years are just two examples of these interactions. Increases in the average height and weight of human individuals and populations have consequences for health, the manufacture of clothing and furniture, physical work capacity, perceptions of desired or ideal body shapes, food production and consumption, demographic structure (fertility, migration, and mortality), and social behavior (Bogin, 2001).

Furthermore, it is now understood that environmental forces, including the social, economic, and political environment, regulate the expression of DNA as much, or more so, than DNA regulates the growth process. One example of this type of biocultural interaction is the evolution of bipedalism, the method of human locomotion unique among the primates. Bipedalism is made possible, in part, by a pattern of growth that alters the size and shape of the skeleton (e.g., legs longer than arms and a relative short and broad pelvis) without adding or deleting any bones found in our ape cousins. It is hypothesized that many crucial feeding, reproductive, social, and cultural adaptations of our species are both a consequence and cause of bipedalism (Morbeck, Galloway, & Zihlman, 1997). These behavioral adaptations selected for the expression and regulation of genes that bring about the human pattern of growth allowing for bipedalism. In a medical sense, bipedalism also brings about many physical ailments, including lower back pain, fallen arches of the feet, and inguinal hernias. People respond to these liabilities of bipedalism with a wide variety of medical and cultural behaviors, ranging from diet to surgery to psychological and spiritual counseling.

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