BODY. The intricate relationship between food and the human body finds expression in virtually all dimensions of human existence: from physiology to psychology, from the domestic sphere to that of political economy, from the societal to the symbolic. In exploring the ways in which food and its consumption are articulated in the forms and images of corporeality, it bears note that the human body, per se, is an abstraction. As gender studies scholars have maintained, there is no such thing as a neutral "human body": every human body is individually unique in a multiplicity of ways (most basically, at the genetic level). In addition, all human bodies are sexed—be they female, male, or born hermaphrodite. For heuristic purposes only, then, it is convenient to generalize about "the human body."

Human Growth and Development

The size and shape of an individual...