INTRODUCTION

	INTRODUCTION

Over recent decades, urbanization, rapidly changed lifestyles and the adoption of Westernized diets have had profound effects on health in previously traditional societies. In Australian Aborigines, for example, these changes are accompanied by high rates of "lifestyle" diseases such as obesity, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, noninsulin-dependent diabetes mellitus, and renal disease.¹ Similar situations exist in other previously traditional societies now in rapid transition, such as in indigenous populations of North and South America, Asia, and in the South Pacific.²

Aboriginal Breastfeeding and Infant Feeding

Breastfeeding was the norm and often prolonged in traditional societies including Australian Aborigines who were the largest and most successful hunter-gatherers on earth. In traditional society, infants were breastfed for at least 2 years but the timing of the introduction of solids can only be speculated. It is likely that Aboriginal infants were weaned onto hunted and gathered foods such as "damper" (a bread made from ground grass . . . [Full Text of this Article]