Emily H. Emmott

The 2024 Infant Feeding Survey likely overestimates exclusive breastfeeding prevalence at 6 months in England. Roughly correcting for probable selection and attrition bias, true prevalence is more plausibly in the region of 4–17%, with an upper bound estimate of 21.4%. More precise estimates would require individual level data, which would allow formal modelling and direct estimation of differential attrition by feeding status.

A comprehensive evolutionary account of human behavior demands simultaneous consideration of biology, local ecology, and culture. Historically, evolutionary anthropology integrated these dimensions through naturalistic observations which offered direct insight into how behaviors unfold within everyday settings. However, in many contemporary contexts, traditional observations are impractical due to challenges in accessing private spaces, contributing to the decline of such methods. While evolutionary anthropologists have gradually pivoted to experimentation and larger datasets, the contextual richness afforded by direct observation is not readily replaced by other approaches. In response, and in light of renewed interest in investigating mechanisms and methodological diversification, we introduce and reflect on autophotography —a visual method in which participants document aspects of their lives through photographs—as a pragmatic, quasi‑naturalistic observational tool for evolutionary anthropology. Within its limitations, this creative, participant‑led approach may help recover some strengths of naturalistic observation while adapting to contemporary field sites.

Background: Childhood overweight and obesity remain global public health concerns, yet caregiver engagement with prevention and support services is often limited. Understanding caregiver beliefs and everyday practices may help improve communication and service uptake. Methods: Seventeen parents from diverse backgrounds across London, England, participated in autophotographic photo-elicitation interviews exploring daily routines. Interview data were analysed using interpretive critical discourse analysis to identify norms and beliefs surrounding children’s weight and weight-related behaviours. Results: Five discourses were identified: (i) ‘Food at the Centre of Weight’; (ii) ‘Body Mass Index (BMI) as an Indicator, not a Diagnosis’; (iii) ‘Homecooked Food as Nourishment’; (iv) ‘Negotiating Challenges for a ‘Balanced Diet’; and (v) ‘Activity for Enjoyment and Development—not Health’. Parents viewed children’s weight as primarily shaped by food and diet, and rejected BMI as a standalone measure of healthy weight. Dietary practices centred on balancing nourishing home cooking with less nourishing foods, while physical activity was valued for its developmental benefits. Conclusions: Caregiver discourse revealed tensions between everyday norms and dominant public health messaging around children’s weight. In England, communications may be strengthened by acknowledging the limitations of BMI categories, resisting diet-centric framings, and aligning more closely with caregiver perspectives on food and activity.

Background: Childhood overweight and obesity remain global public health concerns, yet caregiver engagement with prevention and support services is often limited. Understanding caregiver beliefs and everyday practices may help improve communication and service uptake.Methods: 17 parents from diverse backgrounds across London, England, participated in autophotographic photo-elicitation interviews exploring daily routines. Interview data were analysed using interpretive critical discourse analysis to identify norms and beliefs surrounding children’s weight and weight-related behaviours.Results: Five discourses were identified: (1) Food at the Centre of Weight; (2) BMI as an Indicator, not a Diagnosis; (3) Homecooked Food as Nourishment; (4) Negotiating Challenges for a “Balanced Diet”; and (5) Activity for Enjoyment and Development – not Health. Parents viewed children’s weight as primarily shaped by food and diet, and rejected BMI as a standalone measure of healthy weight. Dietary practices centred on balancing nourishing homecooking with less nourishing foods, while physical activity was valued for its developmental benefits.Conclusions: Caregiver discourse revealed tensions between everyday norms and dominant public health messaging around children’s weight. In England, communications may be strengthened by acknowledging the limitations of BMI, resisting diet-centric framings, and aligning more closely with caregiver perspectives on food and activity.

Adolescence is widely recognised as a key life stage, yet its meaning and experience remain under-explored due to the complex interplay between biological and social transformations. While researchers across fields such as psychology and public health increasingly frame adolescence as a “critical period,” anthropology offers distinctive insights that challenge simplistic and reductionist accounts. This special issue introduces the Anthropology of Adolescence, situating the discipline as an important contributor to the emerging interdisciplinary interest in adolescence. Drawing on a century of anthropological engagement, we emphasise adolescence not simply as a passage between childhood and adulthood, but as a dynamic biocultural stage through which broader social, political, and ecological processes can be understood. The contributions presented here span different forms of anthropology, employing varied methods from structured interviews and focus groups to multimodal ethnographic research. Together, they demonstrate the breadth of anthropological research, foregrounding themes such as spatiality, intersectionality, and socialisation. In doing so, this issue illustrates why anthropology and adolescence go together, and how the discipline can enrich wider debates on this vital life stage.

Adolescence is identified as a key period for identity development, but anthropological literature hints at cross-cultural variations. Past research suggests Japanese adolescents may experience more identity exploration/confusion compared to Western counterparts, but the reasons behind these findings remain unclear. This comparative study investigates how adolescents in England and Japan perceive and engage with their environments, and aims to identify similarities/differences that could explain cross-cultural variations in identity development. Using autophotography, 98 teenagers aged 13 to 15 years across 10 schools in England and Japan documented important aspects of their lives. We applied template analysis to qualitatively analyze these photographs/texts. Overall, we identified two shared themes between countries: “This Is Me,” reflecting personal identity through self-discovery and skill development, and “Connectedness,” emphasizing relationships and belonging. A Japan-specific theme, “Reflections Through Time,” captured the broader temporal lens of Japanese adolescents, sometimes with a sense of melancholy. This notably differed from English adolescents in our study, who focused on the present in a positive manner. These findings suggest cultural differences in how adolescents engage with their environments, which may contribute to cross-cultural variations in identity development. Our findings point to the importance of biocultural approaches in developmental research by considering the role of culture.

Background: Breastfeeding rates in the UK have remained stubbornly low despite long-term intervention efforts. Social support is a key, theoretically grounded intervention method, yet social support has been inconsistently related to improved breastfeeding. Understanding of the dynamics between infant feeding and social support is currently limited by retrospective collection of quantitative data, which prohibits causal inferences, and by unrepresentative sampling of mothers. In this paper, we present a case-study presenting the development of a data collection methodology designed to address these challenges. Methods: In April–May 2022 we co-produced and piloted a mobile health (mHealth) data collection methodology linked to a pre-existing pregnancy and parenting app in the UK (Baby Buddy), prioritising real-time daily data collection about women's postnatal experiences. To explore the potential of mHealth in-app surveys, here we report the iterative design process and the results from a mixed-method (explorative data analysis of usage data and content analysis of interview data) four-week pilot. Results: Participants (n = 14) appreciated the feature’s simplicity and its easy integration into their daily routines, particularly valuing the reflective aspect akin to journaling. As a result, participants used the feature regularly and looked forward to doing so. We find no evidence that key sociodemographic metrics were associated with women’s enjoyment or engagement. Based on participant feedback, important next steps are to design in-feature feedback and tracking systems to help maintain motivation. Conclusions: Reflecting on future opportunities, this case-study underscores that mHealth in-app surveys may be an effective way to collect prospective real-time data on complex infant feeding behaviours and experiences during the postnatal period, with important implications for public health and social science research.

In the UK, girls are consistently found to have lower subjective well-being and higher rates of anxiety disorders/depression compared to boys. While the reasons for these gender disparities are complex, how girls conceptualize, experience, and “perform” femininity may be one pathway which exacerbates psychological stress. To explore this hypothesis, we conducted an in-depth exploratory study to examine how norms and experiences of femininity among seven adolescent girls aged 16–17 from London, England (external factors), relate to their behaviors and psychological experiences (internal factors). To do so, we conducted two online focus groups in July 2021, and conducted discourse analysis to explore their conceptualizations of femininity and its impact on participants. We identified two key discourses relating to the concepts and experiences around femininity among these girls: “Valued by Conformity to Femininity,” or how girls are judged by others based on their presentation and performance of femininity, and “An Uncertain Perception of Self,” relating to uncertain self-identity stemming from their performance of femininity. We reveal a potential social conditioning process of “performing femininity” experienced by our participants, leading to hypervigilance, anxiety, uncertainty, and confusion. Our results suggest that the paradoxical and conflicting expectations around femininity, reinforced by others, may cause cognitive distortions and dissonance, increasing vulnerabilities to low well-being and anxious cognition patterns. Thus, we believe that there are grounds for further research on a larger scale which explores whether there is a sociological mechanism which is creating the gender gap in mental health outcomes at adolescence in the UK.

Understanding human behaviour requires simultaneous consideration of “nature and nurture”, yet biocultural enquiry within anthropology remains uncommon. In part, this may stem from historical divisions the between sub-disciplines of anthropology where biological anthropology has specialised in quantitative methods and socio-cultural anthropology in qualitative ones, often leading to siloed approaches and hindering biocultural collaborations. The study of human behaviour within evolutionary anthropology has emerged from a robust methodological tradition of naturalistic observations, mirroring participant observations commonly deployed in socio-cultural research. This offers opportunities for evolutionary anthropologist to go “beyond the quantitative” to facilitate biocultural investigations. However, perhaps due to increasing challenges and impracticalities with observing participants across private spaces, this method has declined in popularity over the last 50 years. Following recent emerging interest in biocultural mechanisms and methodological diversification within evolutionary anthropology, we explore and reflect on autophotography (a visual qualitative method where participants showcase their lives through photographs) as a quasi-naturalistic method. In doing so, we demonstrate how integrating creative methods into evolutionary anthropology may help bridge methodological divides and enhance biocultural enquiry.

Adolescence is identified as a key period for identity development, but anthropological literature hints to cross-cultural variations. Past research suggests Japanese adolescents may experience more identity exploration/confusion compared to Western counterparts, but the reasons behind these findings remain unclear. This comparative study investigates how adolescents in England and Japan perceive and engage with their environments, with aims to identify similarities/differences that could explain cross-cultural variations in identity development. Using autophotography, 98 teenagers aged 13-15 years across 10 schools in England and Japan documented important aspects of their lives. We applied template analysis to qualitatively analyse these photographs/texts. Overall, we identified two shared themes between countries: “This Is Me,” reflecting personal identity through self-discovery and skill development, and “Connectedness,” emphasising relationships and belonging. A Japan-specific theme, “Reflections Through Time,” captured the broader temporal lens of Japanese adolescents, sometimes with a sense of melancholy. This notably differed from English adolescents in our study who focused on the present in a positive manner. These findings point to cultural differences in how adolescents engage with their environments, which may contribute to cross-cultural variations in identity development. Our findings point to the importance of biocultural approaches in developmental research by considering the role of culture.