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Jim Bindon
(PhD
Penn State, 1981) is a biological anthropologist who studies human nutrition, growth and
health from the perspective of human adaptability. Focusing on the interactions between
biology and culture, he has pursued his research for over 25 years by examining the health
repercussions of modernization among Samoans and others. The background for this page is an image of
a pandanus sleeping mat given to him by friends in Samoa, and the picture in the upper
right was taken during a break from survey research in American Samoa in 1976.
Professor Bindon has studied a variety of biological outcomes
among Samoans such as infant and childhood health and growth, adult obesity and blood
pressure, DNA polymorphisms and physique, and chronic diseases including diabetes and cardiovascular
disease. He has related these health outcomes to residence in different communities, diet
and activity patterns, education and occupation, and stres  s due to changing lifestyles as
a result of modernization and migration (see several of the papers listed below
for details). More recently, he has conducted similar research
on biocultural aspects of health among the Mississippi Choctaw, and in an African-American
population in Alabama. He is currently working with colleagues on a similar
project in Hawaii. Professor Bindon is a strong advocate of the biocultural approach,
frequently belaboring this topic to less sympathetic colleagues. He is convinced of the importance of fieldwork for graduate education and
his students have successfully completed research projects in Alabama, Mexico, the
Bahamas, and Samoa. For insight into how he got to this point in his career, see
Dr. Bindon's essay on how
I became an anthropologist. He enjoys collecting Disney Duck comics,
playing guitar (click on the samples to play my mp3s: Blues
in A, Candyman, Hesitation
Blues, Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and
Burning), and rereading his collection of Nero
Wolfe and Ellery
Queen mysteries.
Late summer afternoons frequently find him floating or canoeing on nearby Lake
Tuscaloosa.
Some Selected Publications
2004. Samoa. In: Ember
C.R. and M. Ember (editors). Encyclopedia of Medical Anthropology: Health and
Illness in the World's Cultures, Volume 2. New York: Kluwer
Academic/Plenum Publishers, pp. 929-937.
1997. Coming of age of human adaptation studies in
Samoa. In: Ulijaszek S and R. Huss-Ashmore (editors). Human Adaptability: Past,
Present, and Future. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 126-156.
1995. Polynesian responses to modernization: Overweight
and obesity in the South Pacific. In: I. de Garine and N.J. Pollock (editors). Social
Aspects of Obesity. London: Gordon and Breach. Pp. 227-251.
1992. (Bindon, J.R. and W.W. Dressler.) Social status and growth:
Theoretical and methodological considerations. MASCA Research Papers,
Vol. 9:61-70.
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