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Abstract
This project takes up the call in biocultural anthropology to develop studies with impact on applied work in human health. Aiming to understand the global pattern of declining physical activity among rural adolescents, I argue that the continued exploration of embodiment theory as a promising direction in biocultural anthropology provides the necessary foundations to prioritize youth perspectives of their daily activities. I do this first by reviewing the past thirteen years of anthropological scholarship on physical activity to understand gaps in our current knowledge and look toward promising research directions. I then take the study of daily activities in youth to rural highland Ecuador, where I interview 17 care providers regarding their perceptions of youth in the community as they access their care systems. Here, I find that youth are perceived as both vulnerable and autonomous, but care leaders prioritize teaching as a mode of providing youth with autonomy over their entry into care systems including systems that emphasize youth leisure time and cultural experiences. I then apply the concept of embodiment to examine how youth voices are heard, how they themselves prioritize their activities, and how they reflect on their daily activities in terms of preferences and in terms of importance for family and community life. This reveals how youth are navigating their globalizing world amidst familial and cultural expectations while maintaining control of their health and wellbeing. Lastly, I show that this study makes contributions to the biocultural synthesis by expanding on the flexibility of methods and theoretical foundations and intentions with which we study for applied human health.