Aspectos políticos y científicos del Modelo de la Transición Nutricional: evaluación crítica y nuevos desarrollos

This article examines the origin and early development of the demographic, epidemiological and nutrition transition models, which were defined in order to explain the evolution of biological living standards of the population, during the different phases of the modern economic growth. In particular, the paper shows that those models were developed from the changing processes observed in European countries, and that political factors were important in its original formulation. The paper also shows that rent initially played a very prominent place as an explanatory variable of these processes of transition, but especially in the case of the Nutrition Transition Model. More recent research, however, the model also considers other variables (environmental, institutional and cultural, scientific advances in nutrition and health). Finally, the article points out the main lines of research that are taking place on the nutrition transition, and the main problems they face, especially with regard to the possibility of making forecasts.