This study examines the impact of nutritional status, classified by body mass index, on sex specific fat distribution patterns dependent on menopausal status in 467 pre-, peri- or postmenopausal females. Absolute and relative amounts of upper and lower body fat were estimated by means of dual energy X-ray absorptiometry. It was found that low weight, independent of menopausal status, leads to the typical gynoid pattern of fat distribution while excess weight and obesity result in the android pattern of distribution in pre- and postmenopausal women.

This study documents the impact of migration, environment and caste on the blood pressure of Sikhs living in the UK and their peers in the native Punjab state of India. A sample of 449 adult Sikhs, males and females, were studied in the Punjab state, and in Southall, in the Ealing borough of London and Handsworth in Birmingham in the UK. There is minor variation in the blood pressure of members of various castes among the Sikhs living in the Punjab. The pattern in blood pressure broadly corresponds with the economic status of the individuals, with well-off groups showing higher blood pressure compared to the poorer groups. The blood pressure of migrants, though higher than that of their sedente peers, is not significantly so. Age at arrival in the UK and the length of exposure to the new environment were generally not significantly related to variation in blood pressure. There seems to be a secular shift in the blood pressure values of the native Punjabi Sikhs compared to earlier studies, possibly because of the rise in civic disturbances and social unrest in the Punjab during recent years.

The Food Choice Questionnaire (FCQ), which measures the reported importance to a given individual of nine factors underlying food choice, and a food frequency questionnaire, were administered to 241 participants, who were also required to classify their diet as either 'standard', 'low in red meat' or 'vegetarian'. Respondents describing their diet as low in red meat attributed greater importance to health, natural content, weight control and ethical concern in their food choice than did those who described their diets as standard, whereas vegetarians differed significantly from those with a standard diet only on the score for ethical concern. Differences between men and women and between students and non-students in the frequency of consumption of a number of foods were shown to be mediated by differences in the importance attached to FCQ factors. Thus the generally healthier diets of women compared to men appeared to be accounted for by the greater importance attributed by women to weight control, natural content and ethical concerns.

A procedure for assessing birth spacing goals, an important component of fertility preferences, is proposed and applied to 1993 Costa Rican data. Based on a reverse or backward survival analysis, preferred birth intervals are estimated to range between 3·5 and 4·5 years (1·5 years for the interval union to first birth). These intervals are 2 or 3 years shorter than crude estimates from data on open or last closed intervals, which are upwardly biased by selection and left censoring effects. To achieve these spacing preferences, a cohort must spend about two-thirds of the time using contraception (one-third in the interval union to first birth). An inverse association between desired family size and desired birth interval is evident only in parity-specific analyses.

This paper reviews the results of clinical trials and community studies of lactational amenorrhoea and its role as a contraceptive method (LAM). Indicators which are used in efficacy trials and effectiveness interventions are compared and sets of indicators of effectiveness appropriate to community-based LAM programmes are recommended. A five-tiered ecological framework is used to facilitate selection of indicators which range from individual to policy level outcomes. The indicator framework is intended as a tool for health practitioners in family planning and maternal and child health service delivery settings who are interested in designing programmatic interventions for the promotion of LAM, particularly among less well-educated women of lower socioeconomic communities.

This paper calculates the mean duration of the postpartum amenorrhoea (PPA) and examines its demographic, and socioeconomic correlates in rural north India, using data collected through 'retrospective' (last but one child) as well as 'current status' (last child) reporting of the duration of PPA.

The mean duration of PPA was higher in the current status than in the retrospective data;n the difference being statistically significant. However, for the same mothers who gave PPA information in both the data sets, the difference in mean duration of PPA was not statistically significant. The correlates were identical in both the data sets. The current status data were more complete in terms of the coverage, and perhaps less distorted by reporting errors caused by recall lapse.

A positive relationship of the mean duration of PPA was found with longer breast-feeding, higher parity and age of mother at the birth of the child, and the survival status of the child. An inverse relationship was found with higher education of a woman, higher education of her husband and higher socioeconomic status of her household, these variables possibly acting as proxies for women's better nutritional status.

Human water contact patterns were studied in two resettlement communities at the Oyan Reservoir in south-west Nigeria in all four seasons in 1991 and 1992. Water contact was most intensive in the afternoon and in the hot dry season, but different types of activities exhibited different daily and seasonal patterns. Both communities were highly endemic for urinary schistosomiasis. However, knowledge regarding schistosomiasis transmission was very limited and the infection was, in spite of a very high frequency of blood in the urine, not considered a major public health problem. Most water contacts were of either a recreational (swimming, bathing) or economic (fishing) nature, and age- and sex-related patterns were evident. The overall level of exposure peaked in the 10–14 years age group but water contact of an economic nature peaked in the 20–39 years age group. Females had generally more water contact than males.

Consanguineous marriages are strongly preferred in much of West and South Asia. This paper examines the prevalence and sociodemographic correlates of consanguineous unions in Pakistan using local and national data. Information from 1011 ever-married women living in four multi-ethnic and multi-lingual squatter settlements of Karachi, the main commercial centre of the country, are compared with data from the national 1990/91 Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey (PDHS), based on information provided by 6611 women. Both sets of results indicate that approximately 60% of marriages were consanguineous, over 80% of which were between first cousins. The mean coefficients of inbreeding (F) in the present generation were 0·0316 and 0·0331 for the Karachi and PDHS data respectively. In both surveys the prevalence of consanguineous unions appeared to be unchanged over the past three to four decades. Consanguineous unions were more common among women who were illiterate or had only primary level education, were first or second generation migrants from rural areas of Pakistan or, in the PDHS, lived in rural areas, and whose parents were also consanguineously married.

The eleventh Annual Workshop of the Biosocial Society will be held on Friday 8 May 1998 from 10.00 to 16.00 hours at the Department of Biological Anthropology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge.