Syllabus: Paper I > Prehistoric Archaeology > Lower Palaeolithic > Oldowan and Acheulian traditions
Lifestyle Diseases and Human Health — 2024 Paper I
Question · 2024 · Paper I · 15 Marks
Critically comment on the lifestyle diseases and their impact on human health.
Model Answer
VAID ICSIntroduction
Lifestyle diseases are chronic, non-communicable conditions whose occurrence is strongly influenced by everyday patterns of diet, physical activity, tobacco and alcohol use, sleep and stress. They include cardiovascular diseases, type-2 diabetes, obesity, some cancers and chronic respiratory disorders. Abdel Omran’s Epidemiological Transition Theory (1971) explains their rise as societies move from infectious mortality towards degenerative and human-made diseases.
Biosocial Basis of Lifestyle Diseases
Lifestyle diseases arise through the interaction of biology, culture and environment rather than individual behaviour alone.
- Industrialisation, mechanisation and screen-based occupations reduce physical activity.
- Urbanisation and global food markets promote diets rich in sugar, salt, fat and processed foods.
- Tobacco, alcohol, body ideals and food preferences are culturally shaped.
- Poverty, unsafe neighbourhoods, occupational insecurity and limited healthcare restrict healthy choices.
- Genetic susceptibility, endogamy and early-life undernutrition may modify risk.
James Neel’s “thrifty genotype” hypothesis (1962) suggested that genes favouring energy storage under scarcity become harmful under calorie abundance. However, it is criticised for underplaying social inequality, childhood nutrition and rapidly changing environments.
Anthropological studies demonstrate the role of cultural transition. Poulter et al.’s Luo migration study (1990) found higher blood pressure among migrants moving from rural communities near Lake Victoria to urban Nairobi, linking migration, dietary change and urban stress.
Impact on Human Health
- Physical health: Hypertension, obesity and diabetes increase the risk of heart attack, stroke, kidney failure, blindness, disability and premature death. Multiple chronic conditions often reinforce one another.
- Mental and social health: Lifelong illness may produce anxiety, depression, dependence, stigma and reduced participation in family and community life.
- Quality of life: Health-related quality of life includes physical ability, emotional well-being and social functioning. Chronic disease may prolong survival while reducing mobility, independence and dignity.
- Economic impact: Repeated treatment, long-term medication and loss of productivity burden households and health systems, particularly where care is privately financed.
- Intergenerational impact: Maternal undernutrition, obesity and diabetes may influence foetal development and increase later metabolic risk, as highlighted by the developmental-origins approach.
Critical Assessment
The term “lifestyle disease” can encourage victim-blaming, as behaviour is neither entirely voluntary nor socially neutral. Healthy food, leisure time, safe public spaces and medical care are unequally distributed. Moreover, developing societies face a double burden in which undernutrition and infectious diseases coexist with obesity, diabetes and hypertension.
Therefore, awareness campaigns alone are insufficient. Prevention requires culturally appropriate food education, tobacco and alcohol regulation, walkable settlements, workplace reform, early screening and accessible primary healthcare.
Conclusion
Lifestyle diseases represent a biosocial mismatch between evolved human biology, changing cultural practices and unequal modern environments. An anthropological approach moves beyond individual blame and addresses the social, economic and cultural conditions shaping both disease risk and quality of life.
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UPSC Anthropology Optional 2024 — Paper I
28 questionsSyllabus: Paper I > Applications of Anthropology > Forensic Anthropology > Applications and personal identification
1(a) Attributes of culture
10 Marks150 words
Syllabus: Paper I > Nature of Culture > Characteristics of Culture > Attributes of culture
5(d) Authority and forms of political organization
10 Marks150 words
Syllabus: Paper I > Political Organization and Social Control > Power, Authority and Legitimacy > Band, tribe, chiefdom, state
1(c) Critical perspective on avoidance and joking relationship
10 Marks150 words
Syllabus: Paper I > Kinship > Kinship Behaviour > Avoidance and joking relationships
5(a) Chronometric dating
10 Marks150 words
Syllabus: Paper I > Prehistoric Archaeology > Chronology and Dating > Chronometric (absolute) dating methods
Syllabus: Paper I > Research Methods > Fieldwork Tradition > Contemporary challenges in fieldwork
5(b) Cultural relevance of the Kula
10 Marks150 words
Syllabus: Paper I > Economic Organization > Reciprocity and Exchange > Kula ring
Syllabus: Paper I > Anthropological Theories > Post-Modernism > Deconstruction; Derrida
Syllabus: Paper I > Prehistoric Archaeology > Neolithic > Origin of food production; domestication; Mehrgarh
Syllabus: Paper I > Applications of Anthropology > Applied Human Genetics > Genetic counselling
Syllabus: Paper I > Human Genetics > Blood Group Systems > ABO and Rh inheritance
Syllabus: Paper I > Human Evolution > Fossil Hominids > Homo erectus: distribution and phylogenetic status
1(b) Harappan maritime trade
10 Marks150 words
Syllabus: Paper I > Prehistoric Archaeology > Chalcolithic and Bronze Age > Harappan civilization; maritime trade
1(e) Hemoglobin in health and disease
10 Marks150 words
Syllabus: Paper I > Human Genetics > Genetic Polymorphism > Haemoglobinopathies; health and disease
5(c) Heritability and its estimation
10 Marks150 words
Syllabus: Paper I > Human Genetics > Quantitative Genetics > Heritability and its estimation
2(a) Discuss historical particularism as a critical development to the classical evolutionism.
20 Marks
Syllabus: Paper I > Anthropological Theories > Historical Particularism > Critique of classical evolutionism
Syllabus: Paper I > Human Genetics > Chromosomes and Chromosomal Aberrations > Karyotyping
1(d) Lethal and sublethal genes
10 Marks150 words
Syllabus: Paper I > Human Genetics > Mendelian Genetics in Man > Lethal and sublethal genes
Syllabus: Paper I > Anthropological Theories > Structuralism > Levi-Strauss; myth analysis; Asdiwal
Syllabus: Paper I > Human Biology > Epidemiological and Nutritional Anthropology > Lifestyle diseases
Syllabus: Paper I > Human Genetics > Quantitative Genetics > Multifactorial inheritance
Syllabus: Paper I > Anthropological Theories > Culture and Personality > Ruth Benedict; configurational approach
Syllabus: Paper I > Research Methods > Tools of Data Collection > Sampling techniques
5(e) Single-gene mutation disorders in man
10 Marks150 words
Syllabus: Paper I > Human Genetics > Mutation and Genetic Disorders > Single-gene disorders
Syllabus: Paper I > Nature of Society > Social Groups, Status and Role > Social stratification and inequality
Syllabus: Paper I > Human Evolution > Biological and Cultural Factors > Bio-cultural synergy in human evolution
Syllabus: Paper I > Family > Impact of Change on Family > Urbanisation and the family