Abstract
This review is a synthesis of the many strands of evidence for a biocultural model of human growth. The model allows us to better understand the causes of variation and plasticity in human growth and development. The model helps us to identify and ameliorate factors that impair health, growth, and development. The biocultural perspective focuses on the recurring interaction between the biology of human development and the sociocultural environment. Not only does the latter influence the former, but human developmental biology modifies social and cultural processes as well. There are two essential messages of this synthesis. First, the biocultural nature of human growth and development is best understood via a life history perspective. The second essential message is that neither biology nor culture has primacy in human development. Rather, both work simultaneously and subtly during all stages of life to produce human phenotypic variability. That variability leads to individual and population differences in susceptibility to environmental disease. To illustrate these points, examples are given of the growth of ethnic Maya children and juveniles living in Guatemala and the United States, and Cape Verde immigrants living in Lisbon, Portugal.
