AMERICAN JOURNAL OF HUMAN BIOLOGY 5501-509 (1993)

Book Reviews Growth, Maturation, and Body Composition:

The Fels Longitudinal Study 7929-1991. By Alex F. Roche. xiii + 282 pp. New York: Cambridge University Press. 1992. $69.95 (cloth).

This book provides a clear idea of the enor- mously varied research activities on physi- cal growth, body composition, and matura- tion carried out a t the Fels Research Institute from its founding in 1929 t o the present time. I counted over 560 publica- tions in its bibliography based on data from the Fels study. The book reviews and sum- marizes in one volume the output of this fruitful growth institute. It also provides history on its establishment and its relation to the other North American growth studies which began at about the same time as the Fels study. In this age of computerese, one might take “Fels” for some sort of acronym. Actually, it is the last name of Samuel Fels who originally endowed the institute to study the mental and physical growth of children, Indeed, his 1933 book, This Changing World, is cited in the bibliography and it forecasts the activities of the Fels In- stitute over the past 62 years.

The variables measured in the Fels study are grouped as follows and treated in sepa- rate chapters in the book: Physical growth (body size, proportions, segments), physical maturation (skeletal and dental ages, sec- ondary sex characteristics and peak veloci- ties of height and weight), skeletal and den- tal data, and body composition changes including associated cardiovascular risk variables (blood pressure, lipids, and li- poproteins). If one thing could be said to characterize the Fels, in my mind, it would be “adaptability.” The study was originally planned to characterize the major features of physical (and mental) growth and record their normal development and establish ref- erence guidelines. Fels has certainly done this, and now continues into the study of its third generation of participants under the Human Biology Division at Wright State University. The study design also included studies of cognitive change, behavior, and family variables. These aspects are not re- viewed in the present book. It focuses on

physical growth with the exception of re- search on the relation of physical and cogni- tive development.

Over the years, data management has im- proved, the questions of interest extended from questions of clinical importance, e.g., prediction of adult height, t o broader popu- lation based questions with implications for prevention of cardiovascular disease. Of im- portance are the many research papers of Stanley Garn; included among them are the earliest and most extensive studies on the genetics of growth. These have been fol- lowed up more recently by genetic analysis of longitudinal data by Pamela Byard. Nota- ble also are the studies of Christine Cronk on longitudinal changes in body fat, Richard Baumgartner on serial changes in body fat distribution, Roger Siervogel on blood pres- sure and lipids, and Cameron Chumlea on body composition in the aged. Yes, Fels studies adults too! There have also been many excellent contributions to biostatistics (Shumei Guo) and the refinement of mea- sures of physical maturity (such as the Roche, Wainer, Thissen method of skeletal maturity). Much of the rest of the bibliog- raphy reads like a “who’s who’’ of Human Biology with cited works of R.D. Bock, F. Falkner, S.I. Pyle, E.L. Reynolds, and L.W. Sontag. The adaptation of the Fels study to important health questions is what stands out for me as setting it apart from all other such longitudinal studies anywhere in the world. These trends are due to the able and far seeing vision of its current director and the book‘s author, Alex F. Roche, who joined the Fels staff 23 years ago.

In the book, results of studies are re- viewed under each heading. This gives the reader an overview of what is known or con- cluded in the area on questions from this particular research group. One could ask what is the purpose of this kind of book? Would not the results be presented in much too brief a form and lose much of the essen- tial details of the original research papers? To me the book is a document of what has been accomplished by this study up to the present. It provides the reader with a cap- sule of the relevant studies in a given area and where to find them. This is an impor- tant service, as the materials from a particu- lar study get scattered in the literature.

Q 1993 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

502 BOOK REVIEWS

There is an annoying feature of the book which detracts from its usefulness as a ref- erence. The publisher has superscripted some but not all references for the authors most frequently cited. Another problem is that references are strictly alphabetical where there are multiple authors and not cited by year of publication, as is more usual. This makes it more difficult to look up cer- tain references. These idiosyncracies are ap- parently due to the policies of the Cam- bridge University Press.

The Fels study is the most active of the early growth studies. This book provides a useful summary of its research output in the field of physical growth. Therefore, the book is a valuable document of research topics and conclusions carried out in the Fels study. It also is a good source book on the history of growth studies in North America and the development of the Human Biology discipline over the past 62 years.

WILL~AM H. MUELLER University of Texas School ofpublic Health Houston, Texas

Foraging Strategies and Natural Diet of Mon- keys, Apes, and Humans. By A. Whiten and E.M. Widdowson. viii + 138 pp. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1992. $79.00 (cloth).

Generalist forager. Hunter-gatherers. Early agriculturist. Herbivory, frugivory, and carnivory. Most readers of this volume will walk away forever dissatisfied with the meager information denoted by these cate- gory labels. Carnivory, for example, is re- vealed as too broad a term to usefully de- scribe the nutrient quality, intake and mix, foraging and sharing decisions, energetics, and settlement (or ranging) patterns of an individual that ingests meat, be it nonhu- man primate, protohominid, or human. Al- though foraging strategies are given equal weight in the title, the focus of the text is diet. Specifically, how did primate dietary preferences, actual dietary intake, and nu- trient requirements coevolve with anatomy, energetic strategy, and often dramatically fluctuating food availability to produce the dietary patterns observed in current human populations? Whiten, Widdowson, and the contributing authors succeed in not only il- lustrating the complexity of this question, but employ sophisticated techniques, data,

and theory to achieve new insights into di- etary evolution.

Based on a Royal Society of London Dis- cussion meeting in 1991, the volume inte- grates chapters on (1) the natural diet of wild nonhuman primates (0. Oftedal; R.W. Wrangham et al.; C.G. Tutin et al.; and A. Whiten et a1.j; (2) hominid foraging behavior and diet (P. Andrews and L. Martin; R.J. Blumenscheine; R.A. Foley and P.C. Lee); (3) diets of extant hunter-gatherer groups (K. O’Dea; K. Hawkes et al.; K. Milton; and J.D. Speth); and (4) reviews of the available data on prehistoric to current human diets (S.J. Ulijaszek; D.A.T. Southgate; and E.M. Widdowson). Many of these chapters repre- sent efforts of many years, often by groups of researchers.

Oftedal’s chapter, which outlines poten- tial complications, variations, and con- founded interactions lurking in wait of tidy and simple dietary models, is a superb open- ing. A major conclusion from other chapters is that, upon close examination, probably ev- ery primate taxa, population, tribe, age-sex class, is best described a s a dietary special- ist. Fine-scale analysis of diet allows exami- nation of very detailed models on precesses underlying diet differences. Yet the detail needed to comprehend differences in extant sympatric nonhuman primate and human populations suggests that data sufficient to test similarly fine-grained hypotheses of horninid and protohominid diet will never be abundant. Much progress has also come from new techniques. Ten years ago no one would have imagined that chimpanzee scats would prove so useful. A major distinction between the diets of chimps, bonobos, and gorillas might well be the intake levels of dietary fiber. Unexpected results are also obtained. Hazda hunters ignore theoreti- cally more profitable small game which they can consume themselves and instead target big (and rare) game which they are obligated t o share with the group. As a result, success- ful hunters receive exceedingly low direct profits from their efforts.

It is daunting to realize how much still remains t o be learned about the diet of any primate, especially early hominids. Identifi- cation of differences in types of food ingested and diet quality are only the beginning. There is much room for progress in quantify- ing food intake, especially the energetic and nutritive value actually obtained from in- gested food. Harvesting efficiency, suscepti-