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Importantly, too, political-economic and sociocultural processes were largely ignored in the search for genetic adaptations. Groups living in challenging physical environments are often also living in social environments with limited access to means of production, wage work, political power, health care, and education. The resulting stressors with origins in relations of power, such as food insecurity and malnutrition, invariably had a greater impact on biology and health than did physical stressors such as high altitude and cold temperatures (e.g., Greksa 1986).

The “small but healthy” debate provides an example of the theoretical and applied significance of how bodies were read as adaptation or signs of stress. Developed by economist David Sekler (1981), the “small but healthy” hypothesis asserts that individuals who are short due to mild to moderate malnutrition (MMM) are nonetheless healthy and well-adapted, particularly to the circumstances of marginal food availability (Pelto and Pelto 1989, p. 11). Hence, economic and food resources need not be directed at them but rather, focused on the few who are suffering from more severe forms of malnutrition. In response, Raynaldo Martorell (1989) argued that while smaller people require fewer calories, their “smallness” entailed substantial social, behavioral, and biological costs. The same caloric deficit that causes slowed growth also decreases resistance to disease and ability to work and reproduce. As Pelto and Pelto (1989, p. 14) conclude, “…the concept of a ‘no-cost’ adaptation makes virtually no sense.” The “small but healthy” debate was key to a reexamination of the adaptation concept, and alerted many to the political implications of their science, in this specific case, whether or not millions of MMM Indian children would receive food aid.