Childhood Nutrition in Developing Countries and Its Policy Consequences
Author(s)
Solomons, Noel W.
Abstract
Because they compose about half of the total population of rapidly expanding populations in developing countries, children consume about half of all food. In the critical early period of a child’s life, however, the extreme example of non-commercial food, human milk, is the focus of concern. Later, with the transition to a solid diet, concerns run the gauntlet between under- and overnutrition. With an increasingly urbanized population, the co-existence of nutrient deficits and excesses pose both scientific and programmatic challenges. But, we are not exclusively what we eat: The role of non-food factors such as infections and exposure to ubiquitous microbes may explain the variance in poor growth and diminished nutrient utilization in early life. Although the causes of these problems may not be exclusively related to the scarcity or availability of foods and nutrients, the conception of the interventions to provide solutions almost invariably is. They seek either to change customary behavior or to deliver additional nutrients to the child’s diet. The priorities of the day follow, in large measure, the topics in discussion on the academic side. They are picked up by the development agencies and become a fashion du jour. In a rather vertical and isolated manner, the fashionable interventions are implemented. Limited resources, the inertia of culture, and the intrinsic limitation of technology will inherently modulate the real impact of such interventions on child nutriture. Not often considered, moreover, is the fact that the redress of a specific deficiency in one nutrient may exacerbate an overall imbalance or undo an evolutionary adaptation to the ecological situation of deprivation. What is taught, and how it is taught, to the field workers who will conceive of, design, implement, and evaluate policy, programs, and projects of child nutrition also becomes a polarizing topic of discussion. One should not discount the influence on educational strategies of the reality that they are also part of global history. Obviously, few attempts have heretofore been made to place in the context of global history this topic of child nutrition or the steps taken to improve it for nations with low incomes and in transition. The issues raised here will hopefully serve to extend and broaden this focus in a field that is almost exclusively devoted to the day-to-day implementation of the cluster of ideas that have captured the attention of intellectuals and donor agencies in any given period along a changing continuum of tactics and priorities.
