Anthropologist Eric Bailey uses a cultural and holistic analysis of African American food preferences to show how black Americans generally perceive health, body image, food, dieting, physical fitness, and exercise. As is true of Americans overall, black Americans are becoming more overweight and obese than ever before. So, too, they are seeing the consequences: heart attacks, strokes, hypertension, and Type II diabetes at earlier and earlier ages. Bailey offers a new cultural diet for black Americans and a prescription for working collectively, not only to understand this critical health issue, but also to establish a lifestyle strategy that will be both effective and manageable.

Eric J. Bailey is a Medical Anthropologist and Associate Professor of Anthropology and Family Medicine at East Carolina University. In earlier roles, he served as Program Director for the Masters in Public Health Program in Urban Public Health at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, as well as Health Scientist for the National Institutes of Health National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities.