MALNUTRITION, The Plight of Poor Communities [Archives:2000/16/Health]

Abdulhakim Hashim
It is a fact that the most widely spread malady in the world, is malnutrition particularly in countries where poverty, and social and economic backwardness is prevalent . It is also the distinguishing phenomenon in the developing countries. However, the most severe cases of malnutrition are to be found in the poor countries. “About 2150 million people in the world are malnourished,” the FAO reported. Half a billion of those people suffer from constant malnutrition.
More than 65 of the developing countries suffer from the worst conditions of malnutrition and 5% of them are under critical malnutrition.
50% of the poor countries’ population, 51% of expectant mothers and 60% of children below 6 are malnourished. The lack of energy and protein is reflected on their thin and pulled down bodies. When bodies fail to have sufficient food, less energy and nutrients are available for growth.
Reasons behind malnutrition are many, Some of which are as follows:
1- Poverty and inflation.
Poverty and inflation are the major underlying causes of malnutrition. These factors affect choices of the kind , as well as the quality of food.
The worst affected countries are located near the equator. Such countries enjoy fertile lands. Unfortunately, they are under the yoke of many kinds of animal, and herbal diseases. Moreover, inhabitants of those countries are mostly vegetarians.
2- Economic planning
Economy is one of the most important problems for the developing countries. Many of them follow an out-of-date mechanism leading to production. For example, 70 developing countries have 60% of the animal wealth. However, they produce only 22% of meat and eggs. Whereas advanced countries possess 21% of animal wealth but they produce 50% of world’s beef and 50% of the world’s milk.
3- Sheer size of populations
FAO’s reports show that world population reached 6 billion in 2000. More important is the point that the majority of population in poor countries any more affected by malnutrition than in advanced ones. As a result, a gap between population and food productivity has been created. Consequently, this decreases the individual’s share of food.
4- Geographical factors
What makes the situation still worse is that food easily perishes in countries suffering from malnutrition, due to bad storage facilities and lack of transportation facilities, floods, dry seasons etc.
5- Social, cultural and religious factors
Some kinds of foodstuffs are forbidden in some religions ignoring the fact that those are essential to build up a healthy body. For example, meat is forbidden in East Asia. A meal may contain enough iron but this might be lost with having a cup of tea.
6- Wars and political conflicts
Wars and conflicts are major causes of starvation causing many laborers to leave their countries. Moreover, a large part of the budget is spent on weapons instead of foodstuffs. This helps widen the nutritional gap.
Nutrition in the Arab world
Arab countries are among the less developed countries in the world. Their economies are undeveloped and they are greatly dependent on the West for nutritional security.
Malnutrition in Yemen
Yemen is placed at the bottom of the scale of poorest and least-developed countries. Most of the people in Yemen do not seem to be fully aware of the importance of balanced nutrition. In fact, it is also the bad economic conditions that affect choice of foodstuffs.
Children and women are very much affected by the circumstances surrounding them. These circumstances can be of two kinds:
a) The first kind relates to the infrastructure including drinking water sources, sanitation system, etc.
b) The second factor concerns social, as well as economic condition of the family including the house, number of members in the family, cleanliness, etc.
Malnourished children
A study has been made on 7501 malnourished children in Yemen to know the effects of malnutrition on them. The study focused on the following parameters:
1- Length in relation to age (shortness)
2- Weight in relation to length (thinness)
3- Weight in relation to age (low weight)
The first measure indicates the child’s growth, in dependent on the constant malnutrition in the society. The second indicates the body’s size in proportion to height, as thinness results from deficiency of food. The third indicator relates thinness or dwarfism.
Children’s malnutrition levels
Studies show that 52% of children below 5 are malnourished. This is reflected in dwarfism as a result of not being well-fed and well-cared-for.
Dwarfism rates are more in the countryside (56%) and mountainous regions (59%) than in the city (40%) and in coastal areas (48%). Deficiency of food, difficulty of transportation, small areas of arable land and dependence on seasonal rainfalls for irrigation are the contributory for reasons. It has also been noticed that it is more among children of illiterate mothers.
As regards low weight measured to age, 46% of the Yemeni babies are born underweight. The rate of low weight at birth is found more in mountainous regions and among babies of malnourished mothers.
Mothers’ malnutrition levels.
Body’s mass and tallness are used as indicators for mothers’ nutritional condition, where the negative effect of malnutrition is seen.
Tallness is used as an indicator for nutrition level during childhood and adolescence. Delivery might be difficult in case of short mothers and their babies might be underweight.
The average tallness of mothers is 153 cm and only 9% are under 145 cm. Short mothers average more in mountainous regions.
The body mass, which is the weight divided by the height, indicates the state of thinness or fatness of adults. The minimum here is 18.5. The average of Yemeni female body mass is 21. However, body mass of 25% of women in Yemen is less than 18.5. Such women are cleanly malnourished.
Malnutrition and the social factor.
Some social behaviors, traditions and conventions negatively affect mothers, as well as children’s health. Some of these factors are listed below:
1- Repeated births
Many families are still not fully aware of the importance of birth control. The short periods mothers take between each delivery is not enough to restore their strength and health. At the same time it does not enable the newly born children to be well-cared-for and well-fed.
2- Qat chewing.
3- Inadequate breast feeding
Sometimes breast feeding is avoided by mothers who have some health problems. Using feeding bottles for feeding children increases the chances of malnutrition.
5- Nutritional wrong habits
A good number of poor families are dependent on vegetarian foods due to the zooming prices of meat, whereas many of the rich families depend on animal source ignoring many of the important kinds of vegetarian foodstuffs.
Drinking Tea, coffee and beverages prevents children from many important nutritional elements such as iron. Repeated intake of one kind of meals and canned foodstuffs as alternative of natural food, is also not advisable.
Alternative food
As mentioned before, due to some health problems, mothers depend on other alternatives such as milk, sugared water, fruit juice, tea, etc. to feed their children. However, many mothers seem to be allured by the development in food manufacturing and advertisements industry which affect their choice of baby food as well as time of feeding their children.
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