ArticleEvolution and human behavior : official journal of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society2017
Innate food aversions and culturally transmitted food taboos in pregnant women in rural southwest India: separate systems to protect the fetus?
Article in Evolution and human behavior : official journal of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 71 citations in OpenAlex.
- Food taboos and their perceived reasons among pregnant women in Ethiopia: a systematic review, 2022.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2023Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Food taboos and other cultural taboos in history of miscarriage: a hospital-based study from India.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2026Article
- Exploring perceptions towards health and child nutrition: A qualitative study among tribal mothers in Southern Karnataka.PloS one · 2026Article
- Antenatal Food Avoidances in Madagascar Suggest an Evolutionary Link Between Subsistence Patterns, Carbohydrate Consumption, and Determinants of Obstructed Labor.American journal of biological anthropology · 2025Article
- Of scents and cytokines: How olfactory and food aversions relate to nausea and immunomodulation in early pregnancy.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2025Article
- Article
- Knowledge and practice of family planning among pregnant tribal women in Southern India: an observational study.Contraception and reproductive medicine · 2024Article
- Food aversion and its association with pregnant women's nutritional status in Teticha Woreda, Sidama Region, Ethiopia: A community-based mixed comparative cross-sectional study.SAGE open medicine · 2024Article
- The evolution of disgust for pathogen detection and avoidance.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Early Plant Learning in Fiji.Human nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.) · 2021Article
- Tradition, taste and taboo: the gastroecology of maternal perinatal diet.BMJ nutrition, prevention & health · 2021Article
- The impact of information about tobacco-related reproductive vs. general health risks on South Indian women's tobacco use decisions.Evolutionary human sciences · 2021Article
- Acculturation and market integration are associated with greater trust among Tanzanian Maasai pastoralists.Evolutionary human sciences · 2021Article
- Taste, smell and food-related nausea and vomiting responses in hyperemesis gravidarum: A case-controlled study.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Food taboos and related misperceptions during pregnancy in Mekelle city, Tigray, Northern Ethiopia.PloS one · 2020Article
- Crucial Contributions : A Biocultural Study of Grandmothering During the Perinatal Period.Human nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.) · 2019Article
- Fish consumption during menarche, menstruation, pregnancy and postpartum in Sikuani women from Meta, Colombia.Journal of ethnobiology and ethnomedicine · 2019Article
- Exploring biocultural models of chewing tobacco and paan among reproductive-aged women: Self-medication, protection, or gender inequality?American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2019Article
- Reframing HIV Stigma and Fear : Considerations from Social-ecological and Evolutionary Theories of Reproduction.Human nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.) · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Pregnancy increases women's nutritional requirements, yet causes aversions to nutritious foods. Most societies further restrict pregnant women's diet with food taboos. Pregnancy food aversions are theorized to protect mothers and fetuses from teratogens and pathogens or increase dietary diversity in response to resource scarcity. Tests of these hypotheses have had mixed results, perhaps because many studies are in Westernized populations with reliable access to food and low exposure to pathogens. If pregnancy food aversions are adaptations, however, then they likely evolved in environments with uncertain access to food and high exposure to pathogens. Pregnancy food taboos, on the other hand, have been theorized to limit resource consumption, mark social identity, or also protect mothers and fetuses from dangerous foods. There have been few tests of evolutionary theories of culturally transmitted food taboos. We investigated these and other theories of psychophysiological food aversions and culturally transmitted food taboos among two non-Western populations of pregnant women in Mysore, India, that vary in food insecurity and exposure to infectious disease. The first was a mixed caste rural farming population (
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.