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The Urban Maya from Yucatan; Dealing with the Biological Burden of the Past and a Degenerative Present

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Culture, Environment and Health in the Yucatan Peninsula

Abstract

Today a considerable proportion of Yucatecan Maya reside in urban areas, with the city of Merida being a site with a long history of settlement. The Maya bring with them a historical legacy of poverty and abusive treatment during the more than 500 years of European and then Mestizo domination. This chapter discusses, from a human ecology perspective, the biological consequences of chronic adverse living conditions experienced by the Maya in the context of a research project in which we studied a sample of grandmothers, mothers, and grandchildren from the city of Merida. Our results highlight three important biological phenomena: (1) the coexistence of undernutrition and overweight, both extremes of malnutrition, at the individual and mother-child dyads levels, (2) the growth and nutrition status of recent generations are shaped by conditions experienced by recent maternal ancestors, and, (3) overall, the phenotype of Maya people studied is the result of historical trauma experienced during the colonial period and decades after Mexican independence.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Ecología Humana, Cinvestav-Mérida, Mérida, Yucatán, México

    Hugo Azcorra

  2. Centro de Investigaciones Silvio Zavala, Universidad Modelo, Mérida, Yucatán, México

    Hugo Azcorra

  3. School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences, University of Loughborough, Loughborough, UK

    Barry Bogin & Maria Inês Varela-Silva

  4. Departamento de Ecología Humana, Cinvestav-Mérida, Mérida, Yucatán, México

    Federico Dickinson

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  1. Hugo Azcorra
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  2. Barry Bogin
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  3. Maria Inês Varela-Silva
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  4. Federico Dickinson
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Ecología Humana, Cinvestav-Mérida, Centro de Investigaciones Silvio Zavala, Universidad Modelo, Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico

    Hugo Azcorra

  2. Departamento de Ecología Humana, Cinvestav-Mérida, Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico

    Federico Dickinson

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Azcorra, H., Bogin, B., Varela-Silva, M.I., Dickinson, F. (2020). The Urban Maya from Yucatan; Dealing with the Biological Burden of the Past and a Degenerative Present. In: Azcorra, H., Dickinson, F. (eds) Culture, Environment and Health in the Yucatan Peninsula. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27001-8_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27001-8_5

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