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Barbara Burlingame

Publications and source records attributed to Barbara Burlingame.

3 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Aging on the job.

The older population is growing faster than the population as a whole. Paid work is the main mechanism for physical activity in humans. We, therefore, wanted to ascertain whether work practices (such as employment status and the types of tasks workers perform) follow the biological decline in physical activity that occurs with aging in humans and many other species. We recorded work practices in 3352 adults in the Ivory Coast to establish how work burdens are distributed across different age groups in a community that is minimally fettered by legal constraints. We found a decrease in the amount of work performed with increasing age, and we found that elderly persons performed more skilled, less exothermic tasks than younger workers. These data mirror global workforce distribution trends expressed by age. If the trend continues, a major portion of the population will be unlikely to contribute to the labor force in the near future, producing potentially adverse economic consequences in some populations. Although the problem might be averted or at least minimized by implementing different employment policies, biological factors could overlay and supervene any economic planning.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2003

The food of Near East, North West and Western African regions.

Among the countries that can be classified as Near East Africa, North West Africa, and Western Africa, there is a great diversity of foods and dietary patterns. Prevalence of undernourishment as defined by FAO using dietary energy supply data, varies dramatically among these countries, with Tunisia in the lowest prevalence category (<2.5%), and Sierra Leone in the highest prevalence category (>35%). Throughout the 1960's, the dietary energy supply of North West African and Western African countries was similar. However, since the 1970s a great and consistent improvement has been seen in North and North West African countries. Both the proportion and number of undernourished in North Africa is now very similar to that of North America. Oil use, energy from fat, and protein from plant versus animal sources account for a large part of the food pattern differences between countries in these regions. Using Tunisia and Sierra Leone as examples again, dietary diversity as measured by the percentage of energy from foods other than starchy staples, is about 50% in the former, while in the latter, it is only 36%. Fatty fruits such as olives, cocoa and palm fruit have a special role in both the diet and the economies of the region.

Africa↗