Brodie Miller: what's the reason behind south asia lagging behind sub-saharan africa in terms of malnutrition. I would have thought - even though you make the point its not a question of food access - that overall conditions in sub-saharan africa leant themselves more towards greater malnutrition?
Meera Shekar: That is an excellent, excellent question, and it's something that has intrigued, the nutrition community for a very long time, and sometime ago there was a report published called the Enigma of Malnutrition in Southeast Asia.
First, most people don't want to believe it. They think the data are wrong when we say South Asia has high rates, but over time, everybody has come to accept that that is, in fact, the case. South Asia does have double the rates, or many countries in South Asia do have double the rates of malnutrition as compared to Africa. The reasons are not crystal clear, but the evidence suggests that perhaps things like
women's empowerment and women's decision-making roles may be extremely important in the high levels of undernutrition. If you see in South Asia, many children--and I'm giving you a rough estimate of approximately 30 percent of children in India and other countries are born with low birth weight, and these low birth weight children never catch up with normal birth weight children.
So, the problem happens very early during pregnancy, which is very different from what happens in Africa. Low birth weight rates are not as high in Africa, but they are very high in South Asia.
And that is very closely linked to what happens during pregnancy, and women's access to food, women's decision-making powers, and so on and so forth. And perhaps the other issue that is linked to the high undernutrition rates in South Asia, is that of poor water and sanitation which is closely linked to malnutrition
umesh sharma <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
umesh sharma <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Indian eating habits are garbage!!Umeshhttp://discuss.worldbank.org/chat/view/11119?PHPSESSID=c777be7d8451f082dc826d9e8e7ccf7b"I assume you are from India, Dr. Sarvalingam, that in a country like India, even among the richest Indians, 25 percent of the children are stunted. 64 percent are anemic.So, malnutrition is certainly concentrated among the poor, but it is not limited to the poor alone.""So, even if food is available at a country level, it may not be available at a household level, but that's where the breakdown often happens. If it is available in the household level, the intrahousehold food distribution can be such that the child who is the most vulnerable often gets the least amount of food. The pregnant woman often eats last in the household when she needs it most.So, addressing these intrahousehold allocation issues, addressing these issues of behavior and prioritization within the house are almost as important, if not more so, than aggregate-level food production alone.And in addition to that you also need to address the health-care issue and the issues of caring behavior for young children.So, yes, food production, increase in food production is definitely part of the solution but not THE solution that will improve nutrition." ..................
Umesh Sharma
5121 Lackawanna ST
College Park, MD 20740
1-202-215-4328 [Cell Phone]
Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University,
Class of 2005
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Umesh Sharma
5121 Lackawanna ST
College Park, MD 20740
1-202-215-4328 [Cell Phone]
Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University,
Class of 2005
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